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F 909 .Y68 

Young, Samuel Hall, 1847- 
19275 

Hall Young of Alaska, "The 


muchina naraon!! 

















BNE s Pa et 
i Pe hie Te Daren Ae 
HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 
: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 





BY 8S. HALL YOUNG 


ADVENTURES IN ALASKA 


“Dr. Young writes with a living power of de- 
scription that creates anew in the reader’s heart 
the rich variety of emotions surging in the breast 
of the naturalist.”—The Continent. 


Illustrated, net, $1.50 


THE KLONDIKE CLAN 


“No one knows Alaska better than the author, 
who spent thirty years in the North in mission- 
ary and pioneer work. He shows the growth and 
romance of the country, the men who made it, and 
the tragedy and comedy of the miners’ struggles 
and adventures.”—The Outlook. 


Illustrated, net, $1.75 


ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR 


“Do you remember Stickeen, the canine hero of 
John Muir’s famous dog story? Here is a book 
by the man who owned Stickeen and who was 
Muir’s companion on that adventurous trip among 
the Alaskan glaciers. This is not only a breezy 
outdoor book, full of the wild beauties of the 
Alaskan wilderness; it is also a living portrait of 
John Muir in the great moments of his career.”—— 
New York Times. 


Illustrated, net, $1.50 








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Photo, Jo Lowise MacAvoy 


THE MUSHING PARSON 











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PALE Y @UNG 
APO ALASKA 


“THE MUSHING PARSON” 


The Autobiography of 
S. HALL YOUNG 





With Introduction by 


JOHN A. MARQUIS 





FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 


Copyright, MCMXXvVII, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 851 Cass Street 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 99 George Street 


INTRODUCTION 


HILE this book is a record of personal experiences, 

\) \) they are the experiences of a history-making man 

who lived his life in a history-making epoch. The 
fifty years Hall Young spent in Alaska witnessed the transition 
of an aboriginal race from savagery to civilization, from 
primitive tribal confusion and anarchy to orderly government, 
and most of all from a dense and cruel paganism to the Chris- 
tian faith and the Christian view of life. These years saw the 
coming of churches and schools, the planting of industries and 
the substitution of family homes for the immoral and disease- 
breeding communal houses. 

One of the difficulties of the historian of any movement is 
to secure adequate information about beginnings. After the 
movement has become important there are plenty of data, but 
the pioneers who begin things rarely think of them as im- 
portant or take the trouble to keep records. From the incep- 
tion of Dr. Young’s work in Alaska he made notes; he was 
one of those very useful people to the historian who have the 
diary habit. Almost from the beginning, also, he was a prolific 
reporter of things Alaskan for church and other periodicals. 
In writing these reminiscences, therefore, he has not been de- 
pendent on the uncertainties of memory fifty years after for 
the material which he so charmingly sets forth. 

He is a delightful story-teller, the kind who could keep you 
awake far into the night listening, and then send you to bed 
to mull over his “yarns,” as he calls them, until morning. 
He is not romancing when he is reminiscing. Whilst much of 
what he tells is stranger than any fiction most of us could 

5 


6 INTRODUCTION 


invent, it is not fiction, but truth. The reader should keep this 
in mind when he comes to appraise the value of Dr. Young’s 
work and the significance of the happenings he relates. 

Dr. Young was more than an eye-witness of the transitions 
whose story he tells. He was a participator in practically all 
of them, and in many of them the inspirer and leader. While 
he was not the first American missionary to Alaska, he was 
among the first, and arrived before the seeds of civilization and 
religion had begun to sprout. He saw heathen savagery at its 
cruelest and worst—the savagery of irresponsible natives who 
never knew the light, and the savagery of degenerate whites 
who sinned against the light and who preyed like wolves on 
the weaknesses and ignorance of the natives. 

It is the same old story of blood and struggle that has at- 
tended the transition from barbarism to Christian civilization 
from the beginning. The process is a birth-throe and can take 
place, it seems, only at the cost of suffering and travail. The 
experiences disclosed in this book are in no small sense an 
epitome of the age-old tale of civilization, the universal saga 
of progress. It is all here in the form of vivid personal reminis- 
cences as illuminating as they are fascinating. 

The second part of the book deals with those strange 
phenomena that follow the discovery of gold in all lands, called 
“‘stampedes,” a psychological enigma to angels and men, as 
wild, unreasonable and ungovernable as a night stampede of 
cattle on the plains. Here is one point at which the primitive 
shows undoubted superiority—he can take gold philosophically 
—we can’t. The sophisticated man always “ falls for” the 
yellow delusion. As soon as Dr. Young learned that gold had 
been found he knew what would happen. Although he was 
then fifty years of age, he besought his mission Board to send 
him with the stampede, to render a Christian ministry to the 
multitudes of unreason who would crowd the dangerous trail to 
the Arctic. So over the White Pass and down the Yukon to 


INTRODUCTION 7 


Dawson he went with those who struggled and cursed and 
perished with the yellow madness in their brains. 

It is an absorbing story, and no one can tell it as can Dr. 
Young. The Klondike was not the only stampede he was 
with during these feverish years. All along the eighteen hun- 
dred miles of the Yukon, then to Nome and Teller and Fair- 
banks, wherever people were gathered in the distant North, he 
went to preach and minister. How he lived under the load he 
carried, the hardships he faced and the epidemics of disease 
he passed through, is an amazement. But he rejoices to-day 
at four score years in a body and mind as vital as when he 
went to Alaska a half-century ago, the same radiant, lovable, 
optimistically youthful man he has always been. 

It will be seen from these narratives that the author in his 
Alaskan service, among both the natives and the stampeders, 
was much more than a missionary in the strict sense of the 
term. He was an explorer and a naturalist, for one thing, and 
was with John Muir in most of his explorations and discoveries. 
A glacier is named for him as well as for Muir. An island in 
the Archipelago also bears his name, as does a species of but- 
terfly in the interior, which he discovered and sent to the 
Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C. 

For another thing, he was instrumental in getting Congress 
to constitute Alaska a territory withilegislature and courts. It 
was a long, hard battle, but Dr. Young is a good nagger, as 
both Congress and his mission Board can testify, and he never 
grew weary. He had able backers at home, of course; Dr. 
Sheldon Jackson, his superintendent, who was as tireless as 
Young himself; Benjamin Harrison, then a United States Sen- 
ator from Indiana; Senator George of Oregon, and the Rev. 
Dr. Lindsley, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Port- 
land. When Congress finally acted, and the first legislative 
convention was called, Young was made its secretary. 

Besides his wide usefulness these pages bring another im- 


8 INTRODUCTION 


pression of the author vividly to the reader, the impression of 
a quality that opens the secret of his life and of the immense 
work he was able to do, and that is his abiding affection for 
the people among whom he wrought. They were ignorant, 
dirty, cruel, and not a few of them criminal, but he loved 
them with a love like that of his Master, and this is the secret 
that made him a great missionary, a great builder and a great 
optimist for the human race. 
x * x * * * * x 


, The above was written as I was starting abroad in June. I 

had seen Dr. Young at the Presbyterian General Assembly in 
San Francisco two weeks before sailing, and had heard him 
speak on the approaching fiftieth anniversary of his going to 
Alaska. Never had he seemed more vigorous in body and 
buoyant in spirit than he did then. We parted at the close of 
the Assembly expecting to meet in New York in September, 
whither he was coming to put the finishing touchés to the 
manuscript of this book and to complete arrangements with 
his publishers. On his way he visited his daughter in Ithaca, 
New York, and then went to West Virginia to speak at a 
pioneer celebration at French Creek, where his grandfather had 
settled more than a century ago, as he relates in this volume. 
A cousin was driving him in an automobile to the place of 
meeting and stopped beside a trolley track to repair a punc- 
ture. During the wait Dr. Young got out of the automobile, 
and while he was walking about he inadvertently stepped in 
front of a trolley car that was passing, and the end came to 
his long and busy life swiftly and tragically. 

Sudden death had no terror for him. Again and again he 
had been heard to express the hope that he might be called 
to his long home while he was working. He wanted no period 
of waiting, no days of enfeeblement or frailty, but hoped that 
he might be called whilst he was in the midst of his labours. 
During his visit to his daughter, en route to West Virginia, 


INTRODUCTION 9 


he hastily blocked out the verses which appear below and 
which express the hope referred to—which was to have so 
early and so tragic a fulfillment. They are the last that came 
from his pen, and are appended just as he left them, written 
in lead pencil on a small sheet of paper which happened to 
be at hand. Evidently he intended the form and metre as 
tentative, and in this draft was only outlining his thought. 
It was in his mind, apparently, to have five stanzas in the 
poem, writing out the first three fully and indicating the 
thought of the last two. However, they reveal his attitude 
towards the “ great venture,” and we print them as he left them. 


Let me die, working. 
Still tackling plans unfinished, tasks undone! 
Clean to its end, swift may my race be run. 
No laggard steps, no faltering, no shirking; 
Let me die, working! 


Let me die, thinking. 
Let me fare forth still with an open mind, 
Fresh secrets to unfold, new truths to find, 
My soul undimmed, alert, no question blinking; 
Let me die, thinking! 


Let me die, laughing. 
No sighing o’er past sins; they are forgiven. 
Spilled on this earth are all the joys of Heaven. 
The wine of life, the cup of mirth still quaffing; 
Let me die, laughing! 


Let me die, giving. 


And let me die, aspiring. 


JoHN A, Margulis. 
New York City. 


In presenting to the public this autobiography, completed 
by Dr. 8. Hall Young shortly before his sudden death, the pub- 
lishers gratefully acknowledge their indebtedness to Dr. John 
A. Marquis, general secretary of the Board of National 
Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States 
of America, for his careful revision of the manuscript and for 
his informing tribute to its author which precedes it. 


a 


CONTENTS 


Otp BUTLER . 
WHENCE? : 
THE Best OF PARENTS . 
CHILDHOOD 

EDUCATION 
NORTHWESTWARD Ho! 
Up Acatnst IT 

THE QUEER PEOPLE 
BEGINNINGS . 
BLUNDERS 

THE GATHERING CLOUD . 
THE STORM 

VICTORY 

SUPERSTITION Dies HARD 


TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP . 


GREAT EVENTS 
ORGANIZATION 

A VoYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT . 
A GREAT DISCOVERY 

THE NORTHERN TRIBES . 


CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION . 


THE Hypas 

A Busy YEAR 
REAL PROGRESS 
THE FIRE 


Crvit GOVERNMENT 
11 


15 
21 
28 
36 
47 
62 
73 
88 
95 
105 
113 
127 
136 
145 
ay 
168 
179 
187 
196 
205 
220 
230 
242 
254 


. 264 


272 


12 


XXVII. 
XXVIII. 
XXIX, 
XXX. 
XXXI. 
XXXII. 
XXXII. 
XXXIV. 
XXXV. 
XXXVI. 
XXXVII. 
XXXVIII. 
XXXIX. 
XL. 

XLI. 


CONTENTS 


THE WorsT SAVAGES . 

NATIVE MyTHOLOGY : 
Last YEARS AT FoRT WRANGELL 
Goop-ByE, WRANGELL 

THE GREAT STAMPEDE 

THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST . 
RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 
Kinc WINTER . 

FRUITION . 

THE NoME RuSH 

Procress AMIp CONFUSION 
THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE 


FRIENDLY ALASKA AND LONELY NEw YORK 


THE HOMECOMING 
L’ENVOI 
INDEX 


282 
289 
302 
309 
318 
330 
341 
358 
373 
385 
395 
409 
418 
427 
435 
441 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


The Mushing Parson . : ’ : ; Frontis piece 
Alaskan Motherhood . ; : ; ; ‘ . 40 
Fort Wrangell : : ‘ ; ; f uno 
An Alaskan Medicine-Man . : 4 : ‘ Mee 
Totem Poles and Communal Houses _ : : euleu 
Muir Glacier : ’ : “ : ‘ } . 204 
Church Building at Council . : ¢ j ; . 240 
Church and School at Skagway, 1898 . ; q ov ea0 
A Confusion of Teams and Goods where the Stampede 
Struck Skagway ; ; : : - : + MeGz 
An Old Sourdough, Panning for Gold . ; ‘ . 298 
Mushing on the White Pass Trail ; f ; . 324 
Dawson During the Stampede Winter . : : Pigo0 
Old-Time Dawson in Summer Array . : : bee fe 
Nome in 1900... : : ; : ; : Avs} ) | 
The Mushing Parson and His Team of Dogs . ; . 406 
Sitka and Edgecombe . } : : ; ; haze 


Alaska Bound in 1923 . : 4 , . E . 438 


Map showing voyages of Muir and Young, 1879, 
1880 . a ; . ; ‘ d ‘ yah sy 


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OOD: litte ‘dull old Butler on the Pittsburgh and Erie 
Gs plank road in Western Pennsylvania. This toll road, 
“not wide arid not always well kept, had the distinction 
of béing the most progressive thing in Butler County, and of 
proclaiming that fact most vociferously. The German and 
the Scotch-Irish farmers who lived near it had their pride in it 
somewhat dulled by the hollow boom of trotting horses and rat- 
tling wagons ‘at uncanny ‘hours. But, compared with the dirt 
roads, sticky with yellow clay mud in wet weather and rocky 
and uneven in dry, the plank road was a luxury; and the few 
big copper cents, the size of a silver dollar, which were neces- 
sary in order to induce the old “ tired farmer ” or poor widow 
who tended it to open the creaky wooden toll gate were cheer- 
fully paid. We barefoot boys used to avoid this road because 
of the danger of getting splinters in our feet, or knocking the 
nails off our toes on the edges of the loose boards. 

The plank road was our one highway to the big world out- 
side—thirty miles to Pittsburgh on the south and forty north- 
ward to Franklin, on the way to Meadville and to Erie on the 
lake. From the fact that its route from end to end of the 
county lay, for a great part, through hazel glades and over 
rocky knolls, or wound among the huge boulders and wild 
cliffs of lonely gorges, Butler County acquired a reputation for 
barrenness that did rank injustice to its thousands of fertile 
acres. Such names as Glade Run, The Everglades, Slippery 
Rock, Muddy Creek and Scrubgrass nailed these slanderous 
ideas to the county. 

Lawyers from Pittsburgh or Newcastle in attendance upon 

15 


16 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


the infrequent sessions of our circuit court, and drummers from 
trade centers invented jokes and gibes at our expense. We 
were called “ Buckwheats.” They used to talk of the “ Butler 
County Soap Mines”; and the chestnut was frequently 
_ cracked about the kildeers and the crows, when obliged to fly 
over the county, having to carry with them haversacks full of 
“ grub,” to prevent starvation. 

Butler, during my boyhood, was a straggling village of some 
five or six hundred people. It was built on a gently sloping 
mound surrounded on all sides by wooded hills. These hills, 
to my childish fancy, were the rim of the world. They seemed 
very high, and Father’s comparison to ‘“ the mountains that 
were round about Jerusalem” did not appear far-fetched. 
Somehow, the flatiron of later experience among real moun- 
tains has smoothed down these hills to very mild proportions, 
but they were formidable ramparts then. One of my most 
vivid recollections is of great flocks of passenger pigeons, thou- 
sands and thousands of them, spring and fall, filling the great 
bowl from rim to rim. As soon as I was able to handle a gun 
I would take our old musket and, climbing to the top of the 
hill above our house, would join its popping to the universal 
banging of every shooting-iron in town. 

When we consider that this kind of thing was going on all 
over the United States, to say nothing of the organized expe- 
ditions of murderers from all the cities who went to the 
pigeon roosts of the Northern States and Canada armed with 
nets and axes to snare the birds and to chop down the nest- 
filled trees, collecting the squabs and feeding all kinds to 
droves of hogs driven in by farmers, it is no wonder that the 
complete extinction of this, the most beautiful of our game 
birds, has added its shame to the sportsman’s “ crimes of 
the ages.” 

Sluggish, roily Conoquenessing Creek half encircled the 
town, lying crookedly around it like a yellow snake. It was 





OLD BUTLER 17 


barely half a mile down Young’s Lane, which was the eastern 
boundary of the village, to William Campbell’s meadow and 
the fishing hole where we used to watch our floats through 
drowsy hours, rewarded to the point of exultation if half a 
dozen chubs and suckers dangled from our string. Another 
lane of about the same length marked the northern town line 
and led through James Campbell’s meadow to the little red 
brick schoolhouse near the northwestern corner of the town 
precincts, where the ‘‘ outside children” got their first boost 
up the ladder of knowledge. This north lane was impassable 
for wheels by reason of its famous mud puddle, dear to us boys 
on account of its bulifrogs, snake-feeders and mud-suckling 
yellow butterflies. 

Within this elbow formed by the creek and Graham’s Run 
nestled the old town. The plank road formed its main street; 
but even in my recollections of seventy years ago the planks 
had been replaced within the town limits by a rude macadam, 
reinforced in places with cinders, ashes and tanbark. In the 
short business section, brick houses and frame shouldered each 
other, pushing right onto the narrow brick sidewalk. Dvwell- 
ings alternated with shops and stores. The narrowness of the 
sidewalk stands out vividly in my memory when I recall my 
walk home from a kissing party with my “ first girl”; how 
with adolescent awkwardness I stuck my elbow out at right 
-angle that she, reaching the full length of her arm across the 
immense expanse of her hoop skirt, might touch my tingling 
joint with the tips of her fingers; and how, whenever another 
perambulating balloon met us we must break contact, the men 
going out into the street while my poor little maiden flattened 
herself against the brick wall, desperately trying to keep her 
tilting skirt from revealing too much of her frilled pantalettes 
as the other woman crowded by. 

On the apex of the mound was the tiny town “ square,”’ with 
its courthouse in the center and brick residences around. The 


18 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


temple of justice, as I first remember it, seemed imposing 
then, but dwindles to small and ugly proportions as I picture 
it now; squatty, dingy, prim, severe, with stiff and ungainly 
cupola. Standing on a pedestal in front of the courthouse was 
an iron statue in heroic size of General Butler, the patriot who 
perished in the Indian massacre at Cloud’s Creek, South Caro- 
lina, during the Revolutionary War. We boys regarded it 
with pride and awe, and noisily discussed the question as to 
whether or not the gash of the “ Injun tommyhawk ” which 
killed our hero was visible on the top of his sculptured head. 
The original plan was to place the general on top of the cupola, 
but his weight exceeded the strength of the structure; hence his 
inglorious position on the ground. 

A few stores and shops displayed their wares on Main 
Street; two brick taverns offered hospitality and beer, and 
small signboards indicated the presence of lawyers. and 
doctors. Rows of hitching posts, at which drowsy horses 
drooped their heads and switched languid tails, fronted the 
stores, while from the side streets and alleys came sounds of 
hammer and saw, as blacksmiths, carpenters and wagon mak- 
ers plied their trades. A sleepy little town in a farmer’s coun- 
try, with only a couple of gristmills, a brickyard, a tanyard 
and cabinet shop to represent the manufacturers—but to us it 
was the center around which revolved the universe. 

A schoolhouse with two rooms, an academy erected by Fa- 
ther’s efforts and named the Witherspoon Institute, and five 
churches, Presbyterian, Episcopal, United Presbyterian, Lu- 
theran and Roman Catholic, provided intellectual and spiritual 
nourishment for the community. Almost in the center of the 
town lay the old graveyard. During my early childhood this 
gruesome reminder of mortality, surrounded by its rotting 
palings on which the whitewash had faded to a dull and spotted 
gray, held a fearful fascination for me as I peeped through the 
tangle of myrtle vines, rosebushes, blackberry vines and long 


OLD BUTLER 19 


grass, at marble and sandstone slabs standing at all angles or 
fallen to the ground, and then ran away, afraid of the many 
ghosts that were said to haunt this ancient burial ground. It 
sullenly held its place long after it had been “‘ condemned ” by 
the council of the growing town; the families of those who had 
been buried there, because of their superstition, or stinginess, 
or reverence, or sheer Scotchiness, long resisting all efforts to 
remove the indifferent old bones to the spruce new cemetery 
north of the village. At the present time all traces of the old 
cemetery have disappeared from the beautiful and thriving 
city, and an up-to-date Junior High School building occupies 
the square. 

A little way from the town line was a large quarry reserve 
where the more pretentious houses got their sandstone, and 
where the older boys of the village engaged in play or battle. 
Within the town limits and just off Main Street lay The Com- 
mons, where traveling peddlers hawked their wares,.and oc- 
casional bands of gypsies camped. Here once or twice a year 
a circus pitched its huge circular tents, and even the preacher’s 
sons were allowed to gaze upon the gorgeous procession of 
gilded chariots, painted animal cages with invisible but vocif- 
erous inmates, beautiful horses with flowing manes and tails, 
and the inevitable two or three elephants. But these circuses 
only filled the breasts of the ministers’ and elders’ children 
with grief and despair; for not until I was fifteen was I per- 
mitted to enter the big tent and witness the fascinating if sin- 
ful performance of acrobats, clowns and riders. 

My father’s six acres lay just outside of the northeast corner 
of the town line. Pasture fields bounded our place north and 
east, and it cornered on a large stretch of virgin forest of oak, 
chestnut, hickory and maple trees. A “ brush patch ” of hazel 
and briar bushes, the shelter of rabbits, quail and an occasional 
pheasant, filled the little hollow, out of which trickled the 
brooklet that ran through our place. 


20 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Pastor Young’s six acre lot was all utilized—every rod of it. 
We kept two or three cows, a horse, three or four pigs and a 
large flock of chickens and ducks; and hay, oats, corn, po- 
tatoes and pumpkins necessary to feed these hungry animals 
and the hungrier boys in the house, must be grown on the 
place. A little orchard of apple, peach, plum, cherry and 
quince trees stocked our cellar with good things, while the 
garden, Mother’s special care and our particular torment when 
weeding time interfered with fishing time, yielded all the vege- 
tables and small fruits we could use. 

Our house was of necessity large—a double house, part 
frame, part brick, until, when I was about seven years old, the 
frame part burned and a roomy brick structure took its place. 

In this old house and into this family, already much too 
large, arrived very early on a rainy morning, September 
twelfth, 1847, after Mother’s longest and severest illness, a 


tiny, puny, baby boy. She already had five boys, but only ~ 


one girl, who was the next to the oldest. She wanted a girl 
this time. The baby was named beforehand for Mother’s dear- 
est friend, Mrs. Lane, a lady of the congregation. When I ar- 
rived, a big disappointment although but a wee, fretful brat, I 
was named for my Uncle Samuel Johnston. Mother wailed 
her protest: “ Samuel means ‘ Asked of God,’ and I didn’t pray 
at all for a baby just now. Still less did I ask for a boy; I 
had more than enough of them before.” For a second name 
the wee mite was given the maiden name of Mother’s friend, 
Hall. When in after years petulantly I protested at the in- 
justice of saddling me with a cognomen whose initials spelled 
“shy,” Father, with that dry humour which has always sat 
upon his lips, consoled me thus: ‘“‘ My son, your name is a 
most fortunate combination. Your patronymic denotes per- 
petual youth. Your initials spell modesty; and your name, 
as you write it, ‘S. Hall "—Shall—means firmness and determi- 
nation. What more could you ask? ” 


ii 


II 
WHENCE? 


RACING the branches of a family tree never appealed 
to me, perhaps because such a chase would require 


the close attention to detail and perseverance which I 
lacked; but my father, who kept a diary and wrote in it every 
week of his adult life, was fond of digging into the mould of 
archives, if perchance he might find there some family root. 
His researches were intensely interesting to him, and in a lesser 
degree to his children. Without inflicting this genealogy upon 
my readers, a hunch as to what they will deem worth while 
urges me to tell a few of the stories my parents poured into 
the ears of their sickly and most troublesome child when, “ too 
pindling ” to go to school with my sturdy brothers, I had to be 
amused at home. 

My grandfather, Robert Young, married Lydia Gould in 
Charlemont, Massachusetts. The Young family of New Eng- 
land traces back to Henry Young, an Englishman who about 
two and a half centuries ago was impressed, or as we would say 
in these days, “shanghaied,” into His Majesty’s navy and 
condemned to the hard and poorly paid life of a sailor. Being 
a Puritan, he deserted when his ship touched the New England 
shores, and he became a Massachusetts pioneer. He fought 
Indians and in the Revolutionary War his descendants fought 
King George. 

The Young family is a very large one and widely distributed, 
and I have heard of relatives of that name in many parts of 
the United States. Some have risen to honour and a very few 
to wealth. It does not run in the Young family to get rich. 
Among our remoter kin the name of Brigham Young does not 
arouse a high feeling of pride. 

at. 


22 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


The Gould family traces back, as I suppose the majority of 
those of my readers will do, to “ The Mayflower.” Zaccheus 
Gould was one of the sturdy few who made the fateful voyage 
on that small and uncomfortable vessel, and landed on “ the 
stern and rock-bound shore.’”’ His descendants are many. The 
wealthy Jay Gould family are our cousins, not near enough, 
however, for us to inherit any of his millions. The eminent 
astronomer, Benjamin Gould of Cambridge, was another kins- 
man, not close enough for us to inherit his brains. 

Both of these Young and Gould families were religious, of 
the stern, inflexible and intolerant New England type. They 
were Calvinists and the Westminster Shorter Catechism was 
the textbook of every family. There was in them also that in- 
tense love of learning that made them the founders and teach- 
ers of schools, academies, and colleges wherever they went. 

Grandfather, Robert Young, was a school-teacher in Massa- 
chusetts, as well as a farmer and carpenter. He moved with 
his large family to the mountainous region of what is now West 
Virginia in 1811. The journey occupied two or three months 
and was made in a wagon, much of the road through the woods 
having to be cut by the sturdy pioneers. My father, who was 
a little lad of five, bore on his hand all his life a scar received 
on this journey from the teeth of ‘“‘ Old Whitey,” one of the 
team, when the little fellow, trying to feed him, got his hand 
too far into the horse’s mouth. Grandfather and his brother- 
in-law, Captain Gilbert Gould, went “ to the end of the road,” 
and there settled among the hills, cleared their farms of the 
big walnut, hickory, chestnut, oak and maple forests and 
founded the settlement of French Creek in Lewis County. Be- 
ing New Englanders, they were opposed to slavery and would 
have no fellowship with the Virginia planters who had great 
plantations, with multitudes of slaves, in parts of the county. 

Like nearly all the New Englanders who emigrated to Vir- 
ginia, North Carolina and Kentucky in those early times, 


WHENCE? 23 


Grandfather had to pay for his farm two or three times, as 
King George had a friendly but unpleasant habit of granting 
the same tracts of wild land to a number of his courtiers in 
succession. The litigation that ensued lasted until after the 
Civil War, when surveyors, tracing old lines with a view to up- 
setting titles and promoting fresh lawsuits, began to be picked 
off by the long rifles of the mountaineers and became dis- 
couraged. Grandfather, however, would not go to law, and so 
paid for his tract again and again. Thus he and his family 
were kept poor. 

Their training and Yankee parentage kept them distinct. 
As there were no public schools in Virginia, Robert Young and 
the Goulds, Phillipses and Morgans, the New England families 
who composed the settlement, established as their first institu- 
tion a school with Robert Young’s oldest daughter as teacher. 
It was the only free school within a radius of fifty or sixty 
miles, and French Creek became the educational center at 
which the country school-teachers for a very large district were 
trained. 

The church soon followed the school. Rev. Asa Brooks, a 
young Congregational minister from New England, was the 
first pastor. He transferred his membership to the Western 
Pennsylvania Presbyterian Church. My grandfather and his 
wife’s uncle, Nathan Gould, were the first elders. The build- 
ing was of logs and it was put up in a day, after the fashion 
of those times, in a big “ raisin’, the men of the community 
turning out en masse, and the ladies spreading a delicious re- 
past of wild turkey, venison and corn pone. At the “ raisin’ ” a 
young man, Isaac Van Deventer, afterwards an eminent phy- 
sician, stood out on the free end of the ridge-pole and with 
impressive gestures raised a bottle of home-made corn whiskey 
and emptied it down his throat “to the prosperity of the 
church.”’. This was not considered in the least out of the way, 
although not long afterwards at French Creek was organized 


24 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


the first Bible Society in the State of Virginia, and, I believe, 
the first Total Abstinence Society in the United States. 

A few stories about the primitive life of those settlers 
among the western hills of Old Virginia: The people lived 
within their own means. No money circulated. They raised 
all the food they ate, and the wool and flax from which they 
made all of their clothing and household linen. Grandmother 
and her girls heckled the flax, carded the wool, spun thread and 
yarn and made the jeans, flannel, linen sheets and shirts, stock- 
ings and other clothing for the family. They seldom had any 
“tame” meat, deer, bears, wild turkeys, pheasants, rabbits, 
squirrels, and other game furnishing delicious substitutes for 
beef, pork and mutton. The big maple trees yielded their 
sugar. Buckskin furnished moccasins. All purchases at the 
stores were by exchange of commodities. These people were 
independent of the whole world for their sustenance. 

Curiously enough, the Youngs were not hunters, although 
wild game was the only dependence for the meat supply. My 
grandfather would never kill even a chicken, Grandmother 
and her boys having to perform such necessary acts. My own 
father never shot off a gun in all his life, and when his boys 
would come to him with bloody toes or fingers he would faint 
dead away. The only living thing that he would kill was a 
snake, and he did that from religious principle: “ The seed of 
the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.”” When, as a boy, I 
would expostulate with him for stopping the buggy on Sunday 
when we were driving to meeting, and getting down to bash 
the head of a beautiful and harmless little green snake, his re- 
ply would come: “TI don’t like to do it, my boy, but it was a 
serpent that tempted Eve and brought all this sin and trouble 
upon the world.” 

Grandfather, by reason of his superior scholarship, was 
elected assessor and collector of the huge Lewis County, which 
has since been divided into four or five counties. He made 


a 


WHENCE? 25 


long journeys in pursuance of his duties, by foot and on horse- 
back. When he rode he always took in his saddle-bags a sup- 
ply of Bibles and tracts which he distributed free to those 
upon whom he called. So kind-hearted and sympathetic was 
he that he often paid the taxes which he had assessed, rather 
than press some poverty-stricken man for the money. He was 
also a magistrate, ‘Squire Young.” There was little legal 
business and not much of crime or misdemeanour in the county. 
On several occasions, however, Squire Young was known to 
have paid the fine which he had imposed rather than ask the 
poor criminal for it, When he was elected sheriff of the 
county, the most lucrative of its offices, he held it only three 
months and then resigned, because it became apparent to him 
that if he continued in office he would have to hang a man, and 
that he could not do. A man of such extreme gentleness of 
spirit that his family of seven boys and three girls, all of whom 
but one lived to be over seventy years of age, were known far 
and wide as the “ soft-hearted Youngs.” They were hard- 
working, but poor in this world’s goods, self-forgetful and 
scrupulously honest, intelligent and progressive, but meek and 
mild often to an absurd degree. 

Grandfather’s intelligence is indicated by the naming of his 
first boy after Pascal Paoli, the famous Corsican patriot who 
was making a stir in the world about the time Uncle Pascal 
was born; and his piety, by the terrible combination of names 
he wished upon his youngest baby girl, Sophronia Mehetabel. 
Strange to say, Aunt “ Phrone ” survived in spite of her name, 
and lived to be ninety-nine years old—everybody’s “ Auntie,” 
an angel of mercy to her whole community. She married a dry 
old hunter, Uncle Ed Phillips, known for his laconic sarcasm. 
Once when some neighbour made a slighting remark about the 
Youngs as not being “ forehanded,” Uncle Ed said: “ Well, I 
reckon them Youngs ’Il all git to heaven, and that’s more’n 
you’re likely to do.” 


26 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Mother’s forebears came to Western Pennsylvania from the 
north of Ireland. Please note that the name is Johnston, not 
Johnson—John’s town, not John’s son. She traced her lineage 
directly back to Oliver Cromwell. His eldest daughter, Brid- 
get, married Cromwell’s general, Fleetwood, and, after his 
death, General Ireton, who became Lord Deputy of Ireland. 
Mother used to tell this story: After the death of Cromwell 
and the accession of Charles II, Cromwell’s family and ad- 
herents were persecuted, and many of them put to death. A 
band of condemned criminals were being herded to a high point 
where they were to be executed. Among them was Bridget 
Ireton. As they went to their fate she recognized among their 
guards a soldier who had been an inmate of her house and the 
recipient of kindness from her family. She addressed him 
by name and expressed her horror that he should be found 
among her murderers. At once the soldier knocked her down, 
and she lay upon the ground stunned and almost senseless, 
while the procession passed on. When the others were out of 
sight he raised her tenderly to her feet, told her that his seem- 
ingly brutal assault was his only way of saving her life, and 
pointed out a way of safety for her. She found friends, who 
helped her to Belfast, and she became the mother of our 
branch of the Johnstons. 

But the Scotch and Scotch-Irish of Western Pennsylvania 
—what a race they were and are! How brainy, how stubborn, 
how “‘sot in thir ways,” how religious, how loyal yet how in- 
tolerant! They were all Presbyterians; all held stoutly to the 
Westminster Confession of Faith and The Shorter Catechism, 
and yet they were of many different shades of blue. In Butler 
and its vicinity there were Presbyterians, United Presbyterians, 
Seceders, Oldside Covenanters, Newside Covenanters, and I 
know not what other Presbyterian congregations. In the town 
of Darlington, where my Uncle Watson Johnston preached, all 
of these Presbyterian denominations and no other had little 


WHENCE? 27 


churches in the small country town, and although only one or 
two were strong enough to have local pastors and preaching 
every Sabbath yet they all held to their respective tenets and, 
even if they had preaching only once a month or at longer in- 
tervals, would not attend any church but their own or allow 
their children to do so. Any innovation in the manner of wor- 
ship or church method was rank heresy and to be put down 
with a strong hand. The best people in the world, yet their 
bigotry was sometimes beyond belief. 

I would not emphasize heredity too strongly. We are what 
we are. Our blood may have power to sway us this way or 
that, and environment is still more potent; but every strong 
man is “ captain of his soul” and is what he wills to be. And 
yet I am proud of my Yankee and Scotch ancestry, while, at 
times, I am afraid of them. I have always felt strongly the 
urge of modernism, the revolt of the twentieth century against 
the sixteenth and even the nineteenth. And as I near the 
bounds of life, more and more does the superiority of the pres- 
ent age, its progress, its methods of education, its religious 
fellowship, its wider view, its newer and keener conceptions 
of God, of the Bible and of the unity of all believers, rebuke 
the narrowness and arrogance of the ages that are past. Hold- 
ing sturdily to the “ Faith of our Fathers,” I yet assert my 
right and duty to examine and analyze that faith, throwing 
upon it all the light of science and candid investigation I can 
command. 

We ought to be, and we are, wiser and better than our fore- 
bears. Let us open our ears to the “ vaster music.” I am an 
optimist of the optimists. 


Il 


THE BEST OF PARENTS 


Y father, Loyal Young, has always been my ideal of a 
M Christian gentleman. He was the bravest and gen- 
tlest, the most unswerving in the path of duty and 
yet the kindliest and most tolerant of men. Keenly alive to 
modern inventions and progress, he held to the faith of his 
fathers with a tenacity that would have sent him joyfully to a 
martyr’s death had such an “ opportunity ” offered. Selfish- 
ness had no place in his make-up. When a plate of apples was 
passed around in our family we were sure that Father would 
take the smallest and gnarliest. So extreme was his self- 
abnegation that at times it was almost absurd. Mother used 
to say that if Father really liked anything, that was a sure 
sign for him that he should not have it. All his life he was a 
peacemaker, and during his long ministry was often sent for 
within the bounds of his own Presbytery, and even to distant 
Presbyteries, to settle quarrels in churches and between in- 
dividuals. 

He was brought up in the School of Hard Knocks. Up to 
the time when he was going to college he never possessed a 
pair of shoes or boots, but wore moccasins in the winter and 
went barefoot the other seasons. He wore clothes made, ma- 
terial and construction, by his mother and sister. From ear- 
liest boyhood he had to work, work, work. He picked up the 
rudiments of an education from his father and mother, who 
had both been school-teachers, and from his older sister Annie. 
But he was chiefly self-taught. An insatiable reader, a mind 
full of question marks. The firm faith and Bible training he 
acquired in that log cabin in the woods of Virginia stayed with 


28 





d 
: 
j 


THE BEST OF PARENTS 29 


him all his life, deepening and broadening but running in one 
channel. 

Life, as my father and his brothers and sisters lived it, would 
seem intolerably meager and narrow to the rampant youth of 
the present day. The homeliest amusements sufficed and made 
happy those barefooted, homespun-clad boys and girls. Of 
late years it has been a great pleasure to rediscover in the 
woods on Little Bush Run, about a quarter-mile from the 
ruins of Grandfather’s old stone chimney, the sheltering rock 
where Father and his next older brother, Festus, used to play 
and study and pray. It is overgrown and almost buried in 
bushes now, but was then in the big clear forest. 

The deprivations of that semi-savage life in the hills of 
West Virginia would seem appalling to the present age, but 
were not really poverty. The people had all they needed, for 
their wants were very few. ‘There were no books for the 
school, so the teacher had to supply their lack by her own 
books, and they quarried slates and soapstone pencils from 
near ledges. Having hardly any cattle to provide tallow, 
Grandmother, in order to make her candles, reinforced the 
softer deer fat with beeswax obtained from the wild “ bee 
trees.” But her boys gathered old pine knots, and, lying on 
the floor in front of the big fireplace, they figured out on their 
home-made slates their “‘ sums.” When adolescence demanded 
advanced studies, Rev. Asa Brooks loaned Festus and Loyal 
a Latin Grammar and History, an Algebra and an old “ Eu- 
clid,’ and the boys drank from these small streams of knowl- 
edge with the thirstiness of the ‘‘ hart by the water brooks.” 

_ When these two eager brothers, both of whom longed for 
education solely that they might preach the Gospel to their 
fellow-sinners, had reached the limit of their pastor’s library 
and ability to instruct them, he called them one day into his 
study. ‘‘ My dear boys,” he said, “I have been praying 
about you, and have come to this conclusion: Poor as we are 


30 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


here, it will be impossible to provide the funds for a college 
education for more than one of you. It will take a great deal 
of money and, even with the whole community helping, we will 
not be able to educate both. Now make up your minds as to 
which of you will go to college, and who will stay at home and 
help pay his way.” 

Of course, Festus and Loyal each began to urge the claims 
of the other. Mr. Brooks finally said: ‘‘ We will have to ask 
God to decide this important question.” He opened his Bible 
to Proverbs 16:33: ‘‘ The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole 
disposing thereof is of the Lord.” Then he prayed for divine 
guidance in making the momentous decision. He took two 
slips of paper, wrote on the one “ Go,” and the other “ Stay,” 
and had the boys draw. Loyal, the.younger and, as the pastor 
said, the brighter, drew the fortunate slip, and although with 
tears he besought his brother to go and get the education, the 
matter was considered settled by divine direction, and Festus, 
helped by the whole family and their kinfolk, began to work 
and save to send the favoured son to college. 

There was next to no money in circulation in that primitive 
Yankee community. Butter and eggs, hides and furs, grains 
and game, tobacco and nuts were the mediums of exchange for 
the few things the settlers wished from the stores. Only one 
commodity brought ready money. That was the curious root 
dug in the darkest woods called ginseng. It was even then in 
much demand by China as a cure-all and also as an incense 
pleasing to the gods. Cash was always paid for this root. As 
Uncle Ed Phillips once told me, ‘“‘ The Young boys was no 
hunters, but they was great sangers. When we’d go a shootin’ 
they’d go a sangin’.” Making long camping trips to many 
deep valleys with their little home-made ‘“ sang-hoes,” they 
dug up pounds and pounds of the savoury, crooked root, the 
name of which signifies both in the Chinese and Indian tongues, 
a little old man, Other boys helped, and the pile of dried 


ae 


THE BEST OF PARENTS 31 


“sang” increased. Grandmother and Aunt Annie kept their 
spinning wheels and looms going. Grandfather sacrificed a 
pet cow and took its hide to a tanner many miles distant and 
had it made into a “side of leather.” The shoemaker at 
French Creek donated his labour, and Loyal got his first pair 
of shoes. 

So it came to pass that one morning, after solemn consecra- 
tion to the Gospel ministry by his pastor in the old log church, 
Loyal started on his two-hundred-mile walk through the woods 
to Jefferson College at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. All his 
earthly possessions were in an old carpet bag slung on a stick 
over his shoulders. His one pair of shoes, too precious to be 
rashly worn out, was carried in his hand. A corn pone big 
enough to last him several days provided food for his journey. 
He slept under the trees, and thought it no hardship. With a 
very small store of money, but sufficient to get him through the 
first year of college, he launched upon his great adventure. 
Teaching school in vacations, occasionally stopping out of col- 
lege for part of a term to replenish his slim purse, this green 
but intrepid young man worked his way through college and 
seminary, his eyes steadfastly upon his goal. He stinted and 
worked and studied, standing well in his classes, beloved by 
all, teachers and fellow-students. In 1832, in the second class 
which graduated from the Western Theological Seminary at 
Allegheny, he started upon his long, quiet, but faithful and 
fruitful career as a Presbyterian minister. 

It is with reverence that I here record my father’s solemn 
dedication of himself to the work of the Christian ministry. It 
was written at the Western Theological Seminary in Allegheny, 
two years before his graduation. Father made his own quill 
pens and manufactured his own ink; but this old manuscript, 
which heads a fresh volume of his diary, is a model of clear 
writing, and the penmanship can hardly be distinguished from 
that of the pages written after he was eighty. And the same 


32 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


deep sense of responsibility and of his own unworthiness for 
his high calling remained with him all his life. There are 
many tear blots on this page: 


November 14th, 1830. 


Assist me O thou Holy Spirit while I covenant with my God. 
Solemn, awful work! Shall a wretched wanderer, polluted 
with guilt, make so near, so solemn an approach? I have so 
often broken my resolutions that I tremble to make a covenant. 
Yet, O precious Saviour, if Thou wilt do all, and bind me to 
Thyself I shall not wander. In mercy, infinite mercy, forgive 
the past and tell Thy servant what he ought to do. Let Thy 
grace preserve me from wickedly departing from my God. 
Place all those interesting motives before my eyes which I 
ought to consider, such as Thy boundless love, Thine infinite 
condescension, and the agonies of the garden and the cross; 
such as my own voluntary engagements, and the awful, pre- 
cious work before me. Forgive my trifling and shed the light | 
of truth and the joy of pardoned sin into my otherwise dark, 
vacant soul. And O my Heavenly Father be not offended at 
Thy guilty creature. Is it not that I may serve Thee better 
that I make this covenant with the Infinite God? 

July 1, 1831. Thus long have I feared to put my name to 
this covenant lest I should break it. If this was a distrust of 
Thy grace, O God, pardon Thy weak, sinful creature. And 
now in the sincerity of my soul, on this my birthday [his 
twenty-fifth] which I have set apart for fasting and prayer, 
would I promise, relying on the grace of God the Father, Son 
and Holy Spirit, to give myself wholly to the Lord; and hereby 
I do give myself to Thee, most merciful God, to be Thine for- 
ever. Amen. 

LoyvaL YOUNG. 


Now Lord save Thy servant from wickedly departing from 
his God and breaking this solemn covenant. It is a covenant 
of grace; grace alone will enable me to keep it. Lord have 
mercy. Amen. 


The following year, 1832, Father records three great events 





THE BEST OF PARENTS 33 


of his life: he graduated at the Allegheny Seminary, was li- 
censed to preach the Gospel and, to use his own words, “ en- 
tered upon the interesting and responsible duties of a hus- 
band.” 

Two of his classmates, Reed and Lowry, the latter the cele- 
brated John C. Lowry, for a long period the Secretary of the 
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, went to India as mis- 
sionaries. Father wrestled long in spirit, desiring to go with 
them, but at last relinquished his cherished desire on Mother’s 
account, and accepted a call to the church of Butler, where 
he was the beloved pastor for thirty-five years. 

My mother was a rather striking contrast to my father in 
disposition, features and mental make-up. That sturdy Scotch- 
Irish strain—inflexible, firm in the faith and loyal to the th 
degree—was yet mixed with Irish humour and fondness of the 
gay and bright things of life to such a degree that she, far 
more than Father, was the companion and playmate of her 
boys. My earliest glimmerings of memory are of ‘ Scots Wha 
Hae,” “ Bonnie Doon,” and “ Wha’ll Be King But Charley? ” 
sung as lullabys, while Mother held me on her lap and rocked 
with her foot the cradle of my baby brother, “‘ Wappoo,” her 
fingers flying about the needles while she knit stockings for 
her boys. Although her father was a Presbyterian minister of 
the sternest type, I imagine his sons and daughters must have 
worried the old gentleman at times by their tendency to break 
away and enjoy themselves. At least I gather as much from 
the stories Mother used to tell me of her young days. Here 
are two or three: 

The way my father happened to meet my mother was this: 
Mother’s brothers Watson and Samuel attended Jefferson Col- 
lege at the same time as Father, and used to invite him out 
to visit them when Grandfather was pastor of Old Rehoboth 
Church. On one occasion the Johnston boys had brought home 
with them a young fellow from Pittsburgh, which was then a 


34 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


struggling new city. The Scotch Seceders were holding a 
camp-meeting in a grove by the old Seceder church. Planks 
were placed across logs as seats, and a large congregation gath- 
ered day after day to listen to three or four doctrinal sermons 
daily, each not less than an hour and a half long. Mother, 
who was a girl of seventeen or eighteen, with her brothers and 
the boy from Pittsburgh, went to the camp-meeting. The sing- 
ing of Rouse’s version of the Psalms was conducted by a 
solemn old elder who acted as precentor. 

My uncles had learned at college how to sing bass. The low 
tones of the harmony had never been heard at a Seceder meet- 
ing. As the young men struck in to the bass, an old lady stand- 
ing by Uncle Sam grew very uneasy. By frowns and nods she 
tried to suppress the boys, but they went on, unconsciously, 
singing bass. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, while the 
precentor was having his innings, she gave Uncle Sam a mighty 
dig in the ribs with her elbow, exclaiming in a loud raucous 
whisper: ‘‘ Haud yer tongue wi’ yer croonin’, an’ let them 
praise God as can do’t.” That ended their bass, and the im- 
pious young men and their sister beat a hasty retreat. 

All the Presbyterian denominations of the indigo and ultra- 
marine tints refused to allow any musical instruments in the 
church services. They would sing most lustily, ‘ Praise God 
with the sound of the trumpet; Praise Him with psaltery and 
harp; Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; Praise Him with 
stringed instruments and organs ”’; but when it came to putting 
this exhortation into actual practice they rejected the sugges- 
tion with horror. Even the United Presbyterians, the lightest 
of the deep blues, long resisted the introduction of a bass viol 
and the formation of a choir. At a church near Grandfather’s 
the young people were determined to have real music, and as 
one of their number played the viol they brought the matter of 
its use before the church session. The old minister opposed 
the proposition, but the majority of the elders voted for it, and 





THE BEST OF PARENTS 35 


the big viol was there in the loft the next Sunday. The 
preacher surrendered gracefully. At the proper time he rose 
and said in a loud voice: ‘‘ We will now sang an’ fuddle the 
Hundredth Psalm.” 

My father, while still a seminary student, became an agent 
of the newly organized Board of Foreign Missions. He was 
employed by the Board to go around among the churches of 
Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, to interest them in 
the great work of saving the souls of the heathen. He was in- 
structed to take up collections for Foreign Missions wherever 
he went. The “ innovation” met with distrust and suspicion. 
It was hard to induce these canny Scotch to give their money 
wrung from the soil to anything but the support of their own 
churches. Father took with him a little stone idol from India, 
and subscription papers which he desired to present to the con- 
gregations. When he appeared before a large country church 
on the shores of the Ohio River, the elders, when consulted 
about the service, refused to allow him to desecrate the Lord’s 
house by displaying a heathen god in it or by “ transacting the 
business ” of circulating his subscription papers on the Sab- 
bath. The young man preached earnestly from the text, “ Go 
ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” 
After the sermon the session voted to permit him to visit the 
members of the church privately on Monday with his sub- 
scription paper and let them see his idol. Father got a good 
sum of money from these fine people. They were zealous for 
the spread of the Gospel but must do things in their own way. 


IV 


CHILDHOOD 


and their families in those old days still brings tears 

of sympathy and self-pity to my eyes as I recall it. 
Hard work, close economy, stern self-denial—these Loyal and 
Margaret Young must practice from the beginning of their life 
together. Neither received anything from their parents to set 
them up in housekeeping. The eight children came in quick 
succession, all except myself sturdy, healthy, hungry young- 
sters. Mother brought with her two spinning wheels, a large 
and a small one, and the hum of the spindle accompanied the 
songs and hymns sung by her sweet voice. Although in West- 


? ANHE grinding poverty which was the lot of all ministers 


ern Pennsylvania at that time there were some woolen mills, 
and it was not necessary for Mother to weave the cloth for her 


household, she did knit all the stockings and mittens we wore 
and made, and mended with her patient needle all of our 
clothes. Part of the time she employed a girl, generally some 
orphan whom she took in as one of the family and to whom 
she paid a very small wage. Mother did the bulk of the 
work, however, getting up before daylight, milking cows, tend- 
ing to chickens, churning butter, working in the garden, car- 
ing for her large brood of children and doing the planning for 
the whole family. To eke out the slender salary, she kept 
boarders most of the time, making room in her house and at 
her table for five or six young men and women who were at- 
tending the Witherspoon Institute, the academy which Father 
founded. 

Father taught school and farmed, to help along. The system 
of paying half the salary in produce gave rise to the only 

36 





| 


CHILDHOOD 37 


serious disputes I ever knew between my parents. I remember 
when old Father McC., the senior elder, brought a load of 
small gnarly apples to turn them in on his “ steepend,” the 
trees of our own orchard hanging red with good fruit, Mother 
boiled over. “Let me talk to him! ” she cried, and started 
into the yard. Father sprang and caught her, faced her about 
and marched her forcibly into the house. Then he went out 
and received the apples, while Mother went into her room and 
had a good cry. 

The scrimping and planning for clothes was pitiable. Not a 
shoestring was bought without careful consultation. Down 
from the oldest to the youngest descended the clothing, made 
over and over again, and patched until the original cloth 
could hardly be discovered. As the youngest, Walter and I 
never had a new suit of clothes. When our garments gave way 
in the daytime, we had to go to bed until they were mended. 
One of the shame-days of my early boyhood was when, visiting 
a neighbour, my breeches gave way in the back, the other boys 
setting up the usual shout of “ Dicky, Dicky Dout, with his 
shirt-tail out,” and I running backwards all the way home. 

And yet our home life was by no means a gloomy or narrow 
one. We all must work, but had plenty of time to play. Be- 
ing the sickly boy, I never went to public school until after 
the age of ten. I learned my letters from those stamped on 
my little tin plate on the tray of my high chair. Twice 
Mother started me to a public school, but in both cases the ex- 
periment speedily terminated in disaster. The first was when 
I was sent with my older brother Kirk to a school taught by 
old Mrs. Butler, a tall, gaunt and very deaf lady. She could 
be made to hear only by shouting at her. She made her pupils 
all study out loud, and during study hours to one approaching 
her schoolhouse the noise was like that of a threshing machine. 

The rod was used constantly. Kirk was a mischievous 
urchin and had to be switched several times every day. I was 


38 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


scared almost to death when I entered the schoolroom and 
was greeted by the sharp voice of my teacher. I was not there 
half an hour before Kirk was called up for his usual chastise- 
ment. He had a very loud, piercing yell, and let it out to its 
fullest extent the moment the whipping began. I sprang out 
into the middle of the floor, crying at the top of my voice, and 
became so frantic as I pulled at my brother to rescue him from 
his tormentor that Mrs. Butler had to desist. Her efforts to 
soothe me, which were not of the gentlest, made me only howl 
the harder, and she had to command Kirk to take me home. 
I sobbed all day and far into the night, and was sick for a 
week afterwards. Mother didn’t send her hysterical child 
back to that school. 

A year or two afterwards I was sent with several of my 
brothers to the little red schoolhouse just outside of the north- 
west corner of the borough, on Graham’s Run. A young man 
by the name of Newton Rogers was the teacher. There was a 
large clump of willows near the schoolhouse from which he 


procured his rods, getting a new bundle of switches every Mon- — 


day morning. He had the system of “ monitors,” by which 
the older boys and girls took turns in watching their compan- 
ions, jotting down the number of times they whispered, laughed 
or failed in their recitations. It was commonly charged that 
favouritism was shown, which was indeed inevitable. The last 
half-hour of the afternoon session was given up to the daily 
reckoning. The records were read by the monitor and the 
pupils called out for their discipline, which was long and 
severe in proportion to their faults. 

One big boy, Bill Fouzer, was always in the greatest trou- 
ble. I had managed to sit through the day until the time of 
reckoning. My brothers, Jim and Kirk, had been dealt with 
rather leniently, although their jackets were ‘“‘ dusted.” I can 
still vision the gloating look on the master’s face when Bill was 
called up. His record was long and black. Newton Rogers 





CHILDHOOD 39 


selected the longest and heaviest stick, and bent back, de- 
livering the blow with his full strength. Bill’s scream, shrill 
and quavering, followed instantly. Again and again these 
blows were repeated, and louder and more agonizing were 
Bill’s yells. They earned for him the name of “ Billie Boo- 
00-00-00zer,”’ which he was frequently called by the scholars. 
It was too much for me. I collapsed in more hysterics, and 
had to be almost carried home by my older brothers. Mother 
did not send me there again. 

I had good teaching at home, without the severe discipline. 
My sister, with occasional help from Father and the older 
boys, attended to my daily lessons. Not because I was brighter 
than the other boys, but because I had saner and more loving 
tutelage, I went ahead of Kirk and Jim, and was ready for 
the academy before they were. 

I was an outdoor boy from the first. While my brothers 
went to school I roamed the woods. I helped my mother in 
the kitchen and always have been thankful for the lessons I 
received in cooking and housekeeping. I worked in the gar- 
den when I was able, and I remember my exultation when, 
after spending nearly the whole day in the onion patch, I re- 
ceived a big copper cent for “all my own.” It promptly went 
for ‘“‘ jujube paste,” a confection that has long since gone out 
of the market. When not roaming the woods I was at home 
bent over a book. Often I was reading aloud to Mother and 
Sister as they sewed. 

The range of our reading was very limited and mostly re- 
ligious. I earned a Brewster Bible by perfectly repeating The 
Shorter Catechism before I was ten. I had read The Pilgrim’s 
Progress over and over again. Walter and I used to dramatize 
it, in our boyish way, disputing as to which should be given 
the réle of “ Greatheart.” I read Longfellow’s ‘‘ Hiawatha ” 
soon after its first publication—also “‘ Evangeline ” and “‘ Miles 
Standish.” Father considered dime novels an invention of 


40 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


the devil, and therefore, of course, his boys all wished to read 
them. We used to get them from the other boys, and read 
them in fence corners and in the attic. Walter and I, from a 
very early age, began to tell each other “ dreams,” making 
them up as we went and weaving wonderful tales of adventure. 
We were always heroes. I remember the sleepy responses to 
the prodding question, “And then what?” when it was my 
turn to tell the dream. I believe that this daily exercise of 
our opening imaginations had a permanent and altogether bene- 
ficial effect upon us both in after-life, helping us to invent and 
to shape our styles of composition. 

The evenings at home, and nearly all of our evenings were 
spent at home, were delightful. The whole family was there . 
in the sitting-room, Father reading, Mother and Sister sewing, 
the older boys wrestling with mathematical problems and the 
younger ones studying or playing games. It is unnecessary to 
explain that these games did ot include cards. I used to walk 
a rod around a playing card when I saw one lying in the road, 
as if it were a snake and would bite me. Tit-tat-toe, fox and 
geese, checkers and, later, chess sufficed us. Just before bed- 
time Father would lay aside his book, and we would have fam- 
ily prayers, including singing and the reading of the Bible; then 
would ensue a pleasant half-hour of conundrums and games, 
a big dish of apples and another of nuts on the table; then we 
smaller boys would go upstairs to bed, each one kneeling to 
say his prayers. Mother had a practice which has made me 
often wonder how we all managed to live and grow up. Five 
or six of us boys slept in one small room. When we were 
tucked in Mother would come, and whether it was winter or 
summer, would carefully close every window and shut the 
doors tight to keep out the “ deadly night air.” 

Of the religious training of my boyhood and its effect on my 
after-life I am going to speak frankly, even at the risk of 
shocking the more conservative. Almost all of this training 








ALASKAN MOTHERHOOD 








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CHILDHOOD 41 


was received at home. There was a Sunday School connected 
with Father’s church, started, I think, when I was a boy of 
seven or eight. The superintendent was Father’s principal 
elder. It was long before the time of International Lesson 
Leaves, or lesson helps of any kind. The only textbooks were 
the Bible and The Shorter Catechism. The teachers were the 
elders and elderly ladies of the church. The lessons were 
simply lay sermons delivered to a lot of squirming boys and 
girls who counted the time when these tedious discourses would 
give place to a five minutes’ recess, to be followed by the ser- 
mon of the morning in the audience room. There were no 
Sunday-School hymn books. The only thing approaching 
these was Watts’ Juvenile Hymns, which were paraphrases of 
the Psalms and Proverbs. Our superintendent would line out 
these hymns, two lines at a time, and then lead the singing, 
and we would join in as best we could. He sang through his 
nose, and his tones were quavering and thin, but we didn’t dare 
to laugh. 

There was no idea in the minds of superintendent or teach- 
ers of explaining the Bible to the little folks or illustrating it 
by stories that they could understand. The small children 
were taught their A B C’s—out of the old New England 
Primer. The rude wood-cuts that illustrated the alphabet had 
a fearful fascination for me. There was ‘“ A ”—‘ In Adam’s 
fall we sin-ned all”: A very small black tree, with a very big 
snake curling out of the top of it, holding an apple as large as 
a pumpkin in its mouth, and tendering it to a very much 
ashamed man and woman enshrouded in immense fig leaves. 

“T” made the shivers run down my back—‘ Time cuts 
down all, both great and small”: A horrible skeleton wielding 
a huge scythe was sprinting after a badly scared boy who, with 
hair standing up, was doing his level best to escape. My sym- 
pathies were strongly with the boy, but I was terribly afraid 
Time would get him. 


‘ 


42 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Not for some time after the starting of the Sunday School 
was there a library. Then only a few books of a severely re- 
ligious type were allowed in it. The tracts furnished by the 
American Tract Society, suitable to the adult religious minds 
of those days, but hardly tolerated and very seldom read even 
by grown-ups in the present time, were handed out to us. 
When I got a little older I read with sympathy the account 
of a little girl who selected a book on Backsliding, and was 
found by her mother crying with anger and stamping the book 
under her feet. She had expected it to teach her how to slide 
backwards. Fox’s Book of Martyrs, Tales of the Scotch Cov- 
enanters, The Massacre of Wyoming Valley, and a few tales 
of abnormally pious children who died young and who, before 
their demise, preached gruesome sermons to their bored com- 
panions exhorting them to flee from the wrath to come—these 
formed the bulk of that first Sunday-School library. Bunyan’s 
Pilgrim’s Progress was better, and I read it over and over 
again. Apollyon and Giant Despair were very real char- 
acters to me. I used to see them at night. 

The book which had almost the strongest, and I think the 
most baleful influence on my childhood, was one in Father’s 
library called Porter’s Sermons and Dialogues. I passed by 
the sermons, but used to pore over the two dialogues. The 
first was between Death and the Hypocrite—the other between 
Death and the Believer. There were many characters in these 
dramas. I remember the names of only a few; one was 
“ Build-Hope-On-Feelings-and-Frames.”’ This was one of the 
companions of the Hypocrite, and his mission was to close the 
Hypocrite’s eyes to the impending horrors of the Judgment. 
The shriek of the damned soul, just before the Hypocrite’s 
death, seared my mind like a hot iron: ‘“ Oh, to have boiling 
lead poured down my throat would be a heaven to this! ” 
Again and again, during the long nights when I couldn’t sleep, 
would these awful visions come and scare me as I would hide 





CHILDHOOD 43 


my head under the bedclothes, peeping out now and then to 
see the hideous shapes coming closer and closer and then re- 
ceding—and hearing the shrieks of the poor lost souls! 

Still worse was a little leather-backed volume, that most 
morbid of the heavy religious poems of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries—Pollock’s Course of Time. As anything 
in the shape of verse had an irresistible attraction for me, I 
fished this book out of a corner of Father’s library and ac- 
tually read most of it. Even as a child, great lines from 
Tennyson, Keats or George Herbert would cause electric shiv- 
ers of ecstasy to course down my spine; but Pollock’s awful 
pictures of the tortures of damned souls caused shudders, not 
of pleasure but of horror. When I read for the first time the 
passage in which the “ worm that dieth not,” a hideous and 
loathsome snake, is coiled around a bleeding and swollen hu- 
man heart, stinging it again and again with poison fangs as 
the heart throbs and bounds in vain efforts to escape—I cast 
the book down and fled to my room, burying my face in the 
pillows, trembling and crying with terror. And that night the 
ever-recurring picture kept me awake and scared me so that I 
left my bed and ran to Mother’s and sobbed myself to sleep 
in her tender arms. Mother was wise enough to teach us 
Mother Goose rhymes and the few fairy stories that she 
knew. But she and Father little realized the sufferings that I 
went through during years of sickly childhood. 

I must be frank enough to say that when I learned The 
Shorter Catechism at the age of ten the vision it brought be- 
fore my mind of God and His dealing with men was anything 
but a helpful one. I was used to picturing everything in my 
imagination, and when I memorized the phrase, “‘ God having, 
out of His mere good pleasure, elected some to everlasting 
life ” and the contrasting picture of those who seemingly 
by the same arbitrary selection were condemned to “ the pains 
of Hell forever,” there arose before my mind the vision of a 





44 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


terrible old man, with gigantic muscled arms and talons for 
fingers, picking out from a crowd of trembling mortals some 
for his right hand, and pitching others down an incline where 
sizzling flames would receive them. There was something so 
cold-blooded and unsympathetic about that transaction as set 
forth in the answer to the question that I could not get over it. 
I didn’t like the word mere. 

And I don’t like it yet. I don’t find it either in the letter 
or the spirit of the Bible. It caused a strong revolt in my 
mind when I was a youth—a revolt that compelled me clear . 
beyond reason to doubt and disgust with religion. I used to 
have periods of weeping and even screaming which my father 
thought was ‘‘ Conviction of Sin,” but which Mother was wise 
enough to charge to nervous terror, and while Father would 
pray with me she would soothe me and divert my mind. Our 
good old Sunday-School superintendent used to talk solemnly 
to us of the terrors of the Judgment, trying to scare us into 
being ‘‘ good.” It was only the very beautiful and sweet re- 
ligious life of my own parents as lived before us day by day 
that counteracted these terrors of the law, and swung me back 
from scepticism to the knowledge of Christ and His Spirit of 
love as He lived and taught among men. 

As I write these lines there has just come to me a letter from 
Dr. R. J. Diven, one of the brightest of our Alaska ministers. 
He writes: ‘ When religion becomes so ferocious that it shocks 
the mind and feelings of a child, then there is something wrong 
with either the system itself or the presentation thereof.” I 
adhere to the Calvinistic system. My reason approves of it, 
but I often wonder how I was rescued from the terrible Slough 
of Despond and Doubting Castle into which these early books 
and teachings plunged me. The rough kindness of my bigger 
brothers and the wisdom and gentleness of my parents kept 
me, I think, from being either a little prig or a vicious and 
rebellious boy. 





CHILDHOOD 45 


Being so sickly, I was perhaps over-indulged. I had a most 
violent temper, and used to fly into paroxysms of rage in which 
I was beyond reason. We all had nicknames, and mine was 
“ Hornet.” The other boys used to buzz at me, to make me 
mad. I would pursue them with sticks and stones. With the 
thoughtless cruelty of boyhood, they were always teasing me. 
Mother used to whip me when I had been most dangerously 
violent, which whipping would be a deterrent for a short time, 
and then I would break out again. Once, when I had broken 
a poker in an attempt to break the head of my brother James, 
Mother turned me over to Father for punishment. It was 
literally true of him that a whipping, when he was compelled 
to administer it to one of his sons, hurt him more than it 
did the boy. This time Father took me into his study, and 
gave me a tender talk on the sinfulness of anger. Then he 
knelt down with me, and prayed fervently that God would for- 
give me and “ vouchsafe”’ to me “a clean heart and renew a 
right spirit within me.’’ Then he took his weeping boy by the 
hand, and, the tears running down his own face, he laid upon 
my shoulders two or three light strokes that would hardly 
have hurt a fly, kissed me and let me go. Father’s prayer and 
his tenderness and evident pain at hurting me did more to 
cure me of my fault than all the chastising in the world could 
have done. 

I hesitate to speak of a trait of my childhood that projected 
into later years. As long as I can remember I would never 
“take a dare.” ‘This led to some very foolish pranks. 

I was very fond of pepper, an abnormal] appetite induced, I 
suppose, by nervousness and a delicate stomach. I would gob- 
ble black or red pepper by the spoonful, when Mother wasn’t 
looking. And when James dared me to eat an Indian turnip 
I devoured it, with the tears running down my cheeks, al- 
though it took the skin off my tongue and mouth and I had to 
live on “ pap ” for a week. 


46 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


When that same brother James, who delighted to torment 
me, dared me to roll down a long hill encased in a barrel I 
went right into it, and he shoved me off. The barrel whirled 
at a terrific speed for a quarter of a mile down the steep in- 
cline, and smashed to pieces against a rock at the foot of the 
hill. Besides the bruises of the concussion I was so dizzy and 
sick from whirling that I was unable to walk for more than an 
hour, and Jim got a good scare for his trick. 

When we were able to handle guns, a group of us disputed 
one day about the force of a paper wad when shot from a gun. 
I contended that it would lose its force in the air and become 
harmless. Chal. Campbell dared me to be the target. As 
usual, I would not take his dare. They rolled a long piece of 
paper as tight as possible and rammed it hard down the bar- 
rel. At the roar of the gun I fell to the ground, with a hole in 
my back. With the help of my scared companions I got 
home, but had great difficulty in concealing my wound from my 
mother and explaining the hole in my overcoat. 

I am not boasting of these feats—on the contrary, they seem 
now to have been foolish to the verge of idiocy. I only men- 
tion them as pointing a finger to this phase in my later life of 
adventure: I have never been deterred from undertaking an 
enterprise because of its difficulty or danger. 





V 


EDUCATION 


faster in the race for an education than if I had been 
strong and well. My brothers had to stay out of school 
and work, when they were mere boys. Two of them, at least, 
never got as far as what would be the seventh grade in the 
present schools. I was too puny to work in the harvest field 
or at road making, and could only “ putter around.” I was 
an omnivorous reader and considered that to get alone in a 
corner with a book was the height of enjoyment. I had only 
one, or perhaps parts of two terms at the ‘“‘ common schools.” 
I went then to the Witherspoon Institute. That was long 
before the time of high schools. Before I was old enough 
to enter this academy I used to spend much of my time in the 
rooms of our boarders who were attending it. They tormented 
me, but helped me. I was a slim little interrogation point. 
Latin, Greek and mathematics ensued under a succession of 
teachers, with my father always standing by to help me, and 
at the age of seventeen I was prepared to enter the sophomore 
class in college, although because of ill health and poverty I 
was not able to do so until my twenty-third year. Many 
demons of disease pursued me all my early life. When a baby, 
measles made me cross-eyed; vaccination “ took ” so violently 
that I almost had the small-pox; dysentery, cholera morbus, 
scarlet fever, whooping-cough, croup and typhoid fever pounced 
upon me and almost shook the life out of me again and again. 
Mother had more trouble in “ raising” me than with all her 
other children. Nervous headaches were constant. Fre- 
47 


| BELIEVE that because of my delicate health I got along 


48 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


quently I had to drop out of school and be “ doctored.” Those 
were the old days when the doctors drained your heart’s blood 
by lancing and cupping when you had a fever; dosed you with 
calomel and other weakening purgatives; refused you a drop 
of water when your whole system was crying out for it; shut 
you in an airtight hot room, away from the “ draught,” and 
compelled you to breathe the same poisoned breath over and 
over again. I managed to live, but it was only ‘“ at a poor 
dying rate.” I never saw a really well day until I went rough- 
ing it in Alaska, at the age of thirty. 

I was fourteen when the Civil War broke out, filling our 
world with tumult and excitement. Father was a very ardent 
Republican and, indeed, an Abolitionist in the days of the 
“Know-Nothings.” A black man with a paper averring his 
desire to raise money to buy the freedom of his wife and chil- 
dren could always command Father’s help in circulating his 
subscription paper, and aid from his slender purse. A branch 
of the ‘“‘ Underground Railroad” ran through Butler County, 
and Father knew all its stations. An incident occurred when 
I was about ten which burned itself into my mind and filled 
me with hatred for the institution of slavery. 

One night I was awakened by sounds from the kitchen, 
which was directly under our bedroom. I went downstairs in 
my night clothes. As I opened the kitchen door I was con- 
fronted by a scene that startled me. The kitchen clock showed 
three o’clock in the morning. Mother was busy cooking. 
Father and one of his elders were talking together in whispers, 
while a Negro man and woman with two children rolled their 
eyes at me in terror. Father beckoned me at once to him and, 
putting his arm around me, said in a low voice: “ My son, this 
poor black man and his family are slaves, and they have run 
away and are trying to escape to Canada. The wicked laws of 
our country make it a crime to help them. If the officers 
should know of this they would put your father and Mr. M. 








EDUCATION 49 


in jail, and would take these poor people back to slavery, where 
they would be whipped and perhaps tortured to death. If you 
ever say a word about what you have seen to anybody, even to 
your own brothers, you will put us all in great danger. Shut 
all of this up tight in your own heart and never whisper a word 
of it.” , . 

I promised and went back to my bed, but not to sleep. Until 
long after slavery was abolished and most of the actors in the 
scene had passed away, I kept silent; but I gained an added 
reverence and admiration for the courage and loving hearts of 
my parents. 

Four of my brothers enlisted in the Union Army; Watson 
first, soon wounded through the thigh at the battle of Fair Oaks 
in McClellan’s timid campaign on the Peninsula. He got the 
typhoid fever after his wound, and when Father brought him 
home from a New York hospital we all caught the disease from 
him. James enlisted second and then Torrance. Both were 
wounded in Grant’s campaigns. Then Robert, our oldest 
brother, joined the cavalry. We were always in trouble about 
“the boys.” Father made four or five trips to the front or to 
hospitals to look after his sick or wounded sons. 

Father’s great unselfish heart was shown when Lincoln was 
assassinated. I was eighteen then; a sickly stripling, wild to 
go and fight, which was entirely out of the question; I could 
not have passed muster. That dark night I had gone to bed, 
but I was awakened by the tolling of all the church and 
school bells in town. I came downstairs and found the family 
dressed and weeping. In alarm I cried, ‘“‘ What’s the matter? 
Are any of the boys killed?’ With tears Father replied: 
“Would to God, my son, it were nothing worse than that! I 
would gladly give all my sons if Lincoln could be restored.” 

When I was seventeen I passed a teacher’s examination and 
was employed to teach a country school in Middlesex Town- 
ship. The school had a bad name, a young woman, one of five 


50 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


or six strapping sisters, having broken a slate over the head of 
the last teacher. Why they let me have the school can be ex- 
plained only by the fact that all young men considered strong 
enough to wield the rod properly in such a school had gone 
to the war. I had fifty pupils of all ages, and of all grades from 
A B C’s to Latin and algebra. The salary was thirty dollars 
per month, and I boarded with the pastor of the Middlesex 
church, who lived a mile and a half from the schoolhouse. I 
was my own janitor. I was terribly afraid of the girls in those 
years, but managed to teach my term out, not at all to my 
own satisfaction, nor, I suppose, to that of the trustees or 
pupils. 

My mental condition in those days was a jumble. Of 
spiritual life I had none. My brothers, one by one, joined the 
Church in their early teens; but I, with the arrogance of 
seventeen, was going through the not unusual “revolt of 
youth.” I was trying desperately to be a sceptic. The boys 
who were my chums and I got Tom Paine’s books, read In- 
gersoll’s orations, and thought we were keeping up with the 
advance of the age by shaking off the “ shackles ” of creeds 
and religion. We talked loftily, when by ourselves, of our 
parents and teachers being “behind the times,” and, not 
openly, asserted our independence. I aimed to be a lawyer, 
although I knew my father was praying every day for my con- 
version and that I should turn my steps to the Christian min- 
istry. 

In this attempt at “ freedom” I didn’t succeed very well. 
Our home life was too sweetly spiritual and too strong in the 
faith to be combated by a youth as ignorant as mine. A very 
strong influence towards confuting the arguments of the infidel 
authors I was reading lay in the poems of Tennyson, Brown- 
ing and Longfellow, all of which I was devouring as they were 
published, and many of which were committing themselves to 
my memory. I could not have in my remembrance, repeating 





EDUCATION 51 


them over again and again as I lay in bed, the Prologue and 
Cantos 53-55 of the “In Memoriam,” and the whole of “ The 
Two Voices,” without believing in immortality. 

In the spring of 67, with my two brothers, Watson and 
James, I went to what was known as the Traverse Region of 
Michigan. It had been an Indian reservation and was thrown 
open to settlement by homesteaders. 

My lawyer brother had secured a homestead on the banks 
of Crystal Lake, and expected to practice law in this com- 
munity and at the same time improve his property. The three 
of us took the first boat in the spring from Cleveland to Glen 
Arbor in Leelanau County. I had been deathly seasick dur- 
ing this, my first voyage on big water, and when we arrived at 
the little station in the forest I was without money, and began 
to look about for something to do. My brothers tramped to 
Benzonia, some thirty miles distant, leaving me with the stuff. 
There was no hotel in the little place, and I got a bunk in a 
woodman’s shack and was doling out the last of the meager 
fund with which I had started from Pennsylvania. 

One day a rough looking backwoodsman drove to the store 
in a one-horse spring wagon. While making his purchases he 
happened to ask the storekeeper: 

“‘ Say, whar de ye reckon I could find a school-teacher? ” 

There was my chance. I spoke up, and in the course of a 
few minutes was engaged to teach school for a four months’ 
term at a salary of “‘ fifteen dollars a month and board around.” 
With my scant baggage I drove with my employer, who was 
the school director, to his one-room log cabin, three or four 
miles from Glen Arbor. This, my second experience as school- 
master, was unique and interesting. There was only one house 
in the township that had more than one room in it. I was to 
make the rounds of the various houses of the district, staying 
a week for each pupil. My schoolhouse had no door or win- 
dows—just holes in the log walls. The floor was of basswood 


52 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


puncheons. I made my own blackboard, taking one of the 
puncheons from the floor and smoothing it with a plane. I 
mixed lampblack, turpentine and oil for paint. A chalk cliff 
furnished the crayons. This rude breaking into backwoods 
life was altogether good for me. I learned how little of ex- 
ternal comforts were really necessary to one’s contentment and 
happiness. Perhaps the greatest benefit I received was the 
conquering of my terrible bashfulness; I learned to sleep in 
the same room with a family without embarrassment. 

After the term of school I joined my brothers at Benzonia. 
They had built a house overlooking Crystal Lake, and I win- 
tered with them. Work at chain carrying for the county sur- 
veyor during the fall and at getting out logs in the winter with 
my brother James from his homestead, two or three miles from 
the village, gave new reactions and helped prepare me for the 
primitive life of adventure I was to lead. 

The great thing that happened to me that winter was my 
conversion. It was not because of the rather noisy and emo- 
tional meetings which were held in the little church at Ben- 
zonia. These rather repelled than attracted me. But the 
sneers at religion and profane and impure talk of rough asso- 
ciates in the two counties impelled me to defend the one and 
despise the other. I joined the Church, and at once all 
thoughts of being a lawyer vanished, and the whole tide of my 
life flowed towards the Christian ministry and the evangeliza- 
tion of those who “sat in darkness”; I was a missionary at 
heart from the moment of my conversion. The acuteness of 
my religious experience and at the same time its abnormality 
appear from the fact that at the time of my first communion 
my emotion was so great that my arm became paralyzed, and 
I was unable for a minute to handle the cup and raise it to 
my lips. My suffering was exquisite as I debated in my mind 
whether this was a rebuke from God on account of my un- 
worthiness or a temptation of the evil one. I now know that 


®& 





EDUCATION a0 


this temporary numbness was because of my high-strung ner- 
vous condition. It was a winter of intense emotion, of earnest 
digging into the mine of Scripture and the formation of life 
purposes that have never left me. The joyful letters of my 
father and his wise advice strengthened my resolution, and 
when spring came I returned to Butler full of enthusiasm to 
begin training for the ministry. 

I found the plans of the Young family all changed. Father 
was leaving his charge at Butler, after a most successful pas- 
torate of thirty-five years, and was moving to West Virginia, 
where his relatives lived. His reasons for leaving a church 
whose members were thoroughly united with one another and 
with him, and a community where he was looked upon as 
father and leader, while they seemed adequate at the time, 
were afterwards questioned by him. In his book, From Dawn 
to Dusk, he gives them as a call to do large home mission work 
in reuniting Presbyterian congregations divided by the war, 
making French Creek again a center of education for the new 
state of West Virginia, and making a home where he could 
gather his younger sons and keep at least half of his family to- 
gether. But, as he intimates, his leaving Butler was a mistake 
of the gravest character. There rises before me one of the 
most distressing scenes I have ever witnessed—a whole com- 
munity, not merely the members of his church, crowding down 
to the station of the Butler-Freeport stage, weeping and lament- 
ing the departure of their father and friend. Loyal Young 
went back to Butler to spend his last days, and when he passed 
away there at the age of eighty-five years the community again 
assembled to do him honour, and the local papers announcing 
his death pronounced him “ the finest and completest charac- 
ter the county has ever known.” 

I count the three or four years spent at the country com- 
munity of French Creek, Upshur County, West Virginia, as 
exceptional in their influence upon my future life—an especial 


54 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


part of my training for a missionary career. This old New 
England colony, planted at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century in the heart of Virginia’s western section, was as dis- 
tinct from the surrounding counties in the character of its 
population, its ideals and community life as an oasis from the 
desert which encircles it. When the Presbyterian Church of 
French Creek was organized in 1819 it was the only church of 
that denomination in a radius of almost a hundred miles. 

My grandfather and his kin brought Puritan ideas with 
them from New England and implanted them firmly in the soil 
of those fertile hills. They were so staunchly anti-slavery that 
the valleys on all sides of them where slaves were kept hated 
French Creek, called their people Yankees and blamed them 
for assisting runaway slaves to freedom in Canada. The igno- 
rant preachers of the mountain whites boasted of their illiter- 
acy, and preached a gospel of frantic emotion, as distinct from 
the sturdy, if somewhat hard, Puritan theology proclaimed on | 
French Creek, as the strict moral and religious life of the New 
England community was from the crude and often loose morals 
of the mountaineers. And these Yankees, though a small 
minority, were far stronger in character and influence than the 
“poor whites” from Eastern Virginia and the Carolinas. 
School-teachers, educated physicians, lawyers and ministers 
trained in Upshur County spread through the rest of that 
region and contributed largely to the stand of West Virginia 
for the Union, its separation from Old Virginia and its adop- 
tion of the state motto, Montani Semper Liberi. During the 
war French Creek was raided by both armies and suffered 
severely, but the great majority of its young men joined the 
Union Army and afterwards helped to shape the liberal laws 
of the new state. 

Father and Mother, with their daughter and youngest three 
boys, moved to French Creek in the spring of 1868. Father 
bought a farm and settled Kirk and Walter and, afterwards, 





EDUCATION 55 


James upon it with the idea of living there and keeping his 
boys with him the remainder of his life. His hopes were not 
realized, and my own personal experiences were trying in the 
extreme, although I afterwards recognized them as the very 
best possible for me. Snow-blindness, contracted in Michigan, 
merged into granulation of the eyelids, and that into inflamma- 
tion of the retina, threatening total blindness. A Pittsburgh 
oculist, consulted as we came through that city, gave me little 
hope of recovery. Two summers spent in a dark room, with 
much suffering and periods of great depression, ensued. At 
times all hope of pursuing my studies and entering the minis- 
try vanished. My mental anguish far exceeded the physical 
distress. I was almost ready to give up hope and faith and 
lapse into the melancholy depression of a blind dependent. 

The “ Faith of Our Fathers,” however, had full sway in 
those days of darkness. The great poems in my memory, and 
others which my sister read to me, coupled with the thousands 
of inspiring texts of Scripture which repeated themselves over 
and over, wrought first complete resignation and afterwards a 
kindlier and more sympathetic religious faith than even my 
father held. I had other troubles besides my partial blind- 
ness—sick headaches, chronic diarrhea, nervous dyspepsia. 
When Dr. Bronson, a very eccentric but thoroughly educated 
country physician, with his jealously guarded prescriptions be- 
gan to build up my run-down system and give it strength to 
throw off disease, hope spread her bright wings again, and a 
healthier frame of mind ensued. Plans of study were renewed, 
and a life of missionary activity beckoned. 

Of those who came into my life at French Creek to 
strengthen and shape it, one little woman, Myra Brooks, stands 
preéminent. She started what afterwards developed into the 
French Creek Academy in a little house on the side hill looking 
across French Creek village towards the Presbyterian church. 
There some fifteen young men and women, all of that old 


56 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Yankee stock, gathered for instruction. I was well up in Latin 
and Greek but deficient in mathematics. I also needed to fur- 
bish up my history and the beginnings of the sciences. Our 
tiny teacher (she weighed ninety pounds) possessed tons of 
energy and enthusiasm. She was a graduate of the noted 
Steubenville Female Seminary, on the Ohio River. Religion 
was certainly her ‘“‘ chief concern.” I argued with her, as was 
my perverse habit, but her deep reverence for the Scriptures, 
her joyful outlook and her sense of moral obligation to God 
and her fellow-men impressed themselves upon me as the 
teaching of no other professor has ever done. She has always 
been to me one of the most wonderful friends I have known. 

The whole community for miles around was peopled prin- 
cipally by my relatives. It was always safe to greet anybody 
I met as Uncle, Aunt or Cousin. French Creek was thirty 
miles from the nearest railroad and was, in many respects, far 
behind the times, but in all essentials far beyond them. Those 
descendants of New England Yankees were all readers and 
thinkers. The other communities, while deriding, came to 
French Creek for instruction and depended upon it. From 
being a bit of Yankeedom, alien to surrounding communities, 
it grew to be a moulder of the educational and legislative poli- 
cies of the state. 

Of course I had to earn my own living by teaching as soon as 
I was able to use my eyes. My first school was that of Oak 
Grove on French Creek, where I worried through six months 
of pain, wearing green goggles and depending largely upon the 
better eyes of my assistant, Irene Bunten. The summer 
months I spent doing what work I could on the farm or roam- 
ing the woods of the mountains and valleys with my gun and 
trout rod. A splendid lot of young men and women sur- 
rounded me, and the close friendships formed on French Creek 
are numbered among the dearest and most helpful of my life. 
Other schools at Buckhannon, Rockcave, and Philippi fol- 





EDUCATION 57 


lowed, at which I accumulated much experience and sufficient 
funds to start me to college. 

Dear old French Creek! It seems to me, looking back from 
these later and wiser years, that this country community at 
whose old-fashioned ways I used to laugh, and which with the 
egotism of twenty I used to criticise and try to despise, yet 
exerted a stronger and healthier influence upon my life than 
all other places combined in which I have lived. The purity, 
strict temperance, sturdy faith, wide range of reading, and, 
above all, the high ideals and warm hearts of my relatives in 
French Creek and Upshur County shaped my life and placed 
it upon a firm basis of faith in God and desire to serve Him 
by working for my fellow-men in the widest possible fields. _ 

Two severe accidents befell me at French Creek, which are 
recorded here because of the handicap they entailed upon my 
work in the wilds of Alaska. I was an awkward youth and a 
poor horseman, with as unstable a seat in the saddle as that 
attributed to the Prince of Wales. But, like him, I was always 
riding, and often on unbroken colts. Two successive summers 
the foolish young animals I was trying to break fell with me, 
and first my left shoulder and next my right one were dis- 
located. This began a series of dislocations which occurred at 
frequent intervals during my life in the North and greatly 
interfered with my mountain climbing and canoeing. 

The University of Wooster, Ohio, put out enticing posters 
at its beginning, and thither I wended for the spring term of 
1871. I entered the class of ’74, but owing to two severe at- 
tacks of illness and my constant poverty I stayed out of col- 
lege for a year and a half, teaching school one winter, and 
graduated with the class of ’75. Wooster was a new experiment 
in denominational colleges and was, from the first, a shining 
success. The early students were, almost without exception, 
young men and women beyond their teens and nearly all Chris- 
tians. A large proportion of them went into the ministry. The 


58 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Brainerd Missionary Society, of which I was the first president, 
directed a number of us to Foreign and Domestic Mission fields 
as our life-work,,while the Athenean and Irving Literary So- 
cieties started us out as public speakers. I was an Athenean, 
and I remember with shame and self-pity the first three times 
I tried to deliver an oration, when my carefully prepared 
speeches vanished into mist and I broke down completely, my 
stage fright reaching the extreme of paralysis of brain and lip. 
Blessed are the boys and girls of the present era who learn in 
school and Sunday School and Endeavour Society self-con- 
fidence and the faculty of expression. 

During my college and seminary courses I was getting far 
more than the textbook lessons or instructions in the class- 
room. Whether wisely or unwisely, I was always sacrificing 
grades to the acquisition of general knowledge from a wide 
range of reading. I stood quite well in my classes but spent 
more than half of the study hours getting acquainted with the 
great minds of all eras, especially the poets. Looking back, I 
do not regret any of the time spent in this way. I have for- 
gotten most of what I learned from textbooks, but the poets, 
historians and essayists stay with me and lift me into the 
higher regions of spiritual and mental enjoyment as I “ medi- 
tate upon them in the night watches.” Wooster did me a vast 
amount of good, far more than the theological seminaries. 

During my vacations I was teaching summer schools, col- 
porteuring for the denomination’s Board of Publication and 
conducting college chums to favourite resorts in the mountains. 
During the whole of my life I have been an ardent hunter 
and fisherman, and the most complete rest and recuperation 
I can obtain is far in the wilds of God’s great outdoors. 

In the fall of ’75 I went to Princeton Seminary. My father, 
who was a Western Seminary man, advised me to go to Alle- 
gheny; but Dr. Charles Hodge was still living and teaching, 
and I wished to get his course in New Testament exegesis from 





EDUCATION 59 


Romans. I have never regretted going to Princeton, although 
one year sufficed me. What we got from that little bald- 
headed, fat, old man as he “ scrooched” down in his chair, 
seeing none of us and hardly aware of our existence, while 
he held his Greek Testament close up to his near-sighted eyes 
and talked the wisdom of the ages! We acquired his whole 
system of theology from those talks on Romans. It was really 
almost all I got at Princeton. 

Dr. McGill, who was an old friend of my father’s, received 
me cordially when I introduced myself, and then forgot all 
about me. He was an old man then, although he had just 
married Miss Kittie Hodge, and loved to talk about it. Dr. 
Charles L. Thompson, whose autobiography is one of the most 
delightful books I have read in recent years, says: “‘ And there 
was that marvel of Scriptural memory and of suave urbanity, 
Dr. Alexander T. McGill, whose cordial invitations to his house 
(which we dared not accept) gave a touch of humanness to our 
frigid surroundings.” 

My one year at Princeton was spoiled for me in several 
ways. My roommate and classmate at Wooster, Beatty Fer- 
guson, went with me to Princeton. After a month or so he was 
taken ill with synovitis, an acute inflammation of the knee 
joint. He was in his bed, unable to put his foot to the floor, 
for nearly six months. I was his nurse, and under the doctor’s 
directions I had to bandage the bad knee every day. For most 
of that time Beatty would not let any one touch the limb ex- 
cept myself; and when in holiday times I went to New York 
City for a week, his knee remained unbandaged until I re- 
turned. Day and night I attended my chum, and lost many a 
night’s sleep. My class work—and disposition—suffered. 

The visit of Moody and Sankey to Princeton College and 
their first great meeting in Barnum’s Museum in Madison 
Square, New York, which I attended with a number of other 
students, did me more good than the whole seminary year. The 


60 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


lectures and sermons which I heard at Princeton, especially 
those of Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. John Hall and Dr. Duryea, 
stand out far more clearly in my memory and in my spiritual 
consciousness than all the teachings of theology and Church 
history. I risk the condemnation of many of my readers by con- 
fessing that during my visit to New York City in the holidays, 
my classmate and’chum, Frank Ballard, and I ran away from 
the Moody meeting one night and went to the new Booth’s 
Theatre to witness the play ‘“‘ Julius Cesar ” given by the three 
great stars, Davenport, Barrett and Bangs; and the memory 
of this play has stayed with me and has done me at least as 
much good as the inspiring meetings in Madison Square. 
The middle seminary year found me at Western Seminary. 
The great attraction for me there lay in three professors—Dr. 
A. A. Hodge, systematic theology; Dr. Samuel Wilson, Church 
history; Dr. Jeffers, who had been my Greek professor at 
Wooster, Hebrew. The atmosphere of Allegheny was as warm 
and inspiring as that of Princeton had been cold and indif- 
ferent. The professors were our personal friends—knew all 
about us—came to see us in our rooms and took an interest in 
our present and future. Whereas the Princeton professors © 
were very loath to have the students go out and preach on 
Sundays, these of Allegheny interested themselves in getting 
us appointments and arranged the classes for our accommoda- 
tion. I boarded with my aunt in Allegheny and had plenty of 
social enjoyment. During those two years in this seminary I 
preached somewhere every Sunday but two or three. Three 
of my brothers were at work in the oil regions, and through 
them I obtained appointments that were interesting, from the 
class of men I reached, and profitable because of their liberal- 
ity. If we went to any of the old country churches about 
Pittsburgh we preached two sermons, taught classes in the 
Sunday Schools, were entertained in farmhouses, paid our own 
car fare and received five dollars for our services; whereas if 





EDUCATION 61 


we went to the oil towns we got from fifteen to twenty-five dol- 
lars, were put up in hotels and generally had our railroad fare 
paid for us. During my senior year I supplied Father’s old 
charge at Butler, where I was made very welcome and felt 
completely at home. 

My recollections of life at the Western Seminary are all 
pleasant. My special chums there were H. T. McClelland 
(Harry) and James H. Snowden (Jim); and in my senior year 
my old Wooster and Princeton chum, ’Dolf Lehmann, fled from 
Princeton to be my roommate and classmate at Western. 

During my vacations I preached first to a little congregation 
in Ohio, and second to the old church at French Creek. This 
last vacation, between my middle and senior years, was a con- 
stant delight. I was among my old friends and relatives, who 
were sympathetic, helpful and lenient in their judgment, more 
than has been the case in any of my succeeding charges. What 
they thought of me can best be inferred, perhaps, from the 
words of my dry old hunter uncle, Ed Phillips, the husband of 
my dearest and sweetest Aunt Phrone. Uncle Ed was not a 
member of the Church and could never be induced to join. 
But he attended the meetings. One Sabbath I went home with 
them, and after the usual chicken dinner, cooked in Auntie’s 
best style, we sat on the front porch and there was a friendly 
silence. Then Uncle Ed spoke: 

“ Hall, did you make that sermon? ” 

“ Why, yes,” I replied. 

Another long silence. ‘“ All of it? ” 

“Yes, all of it.” 

“ All of it your own self? ” 

“Yes, every word of it.” 

A still longer silence; then Uncle Ed delivered his final judg- 
ment: “ Waal, I reckon you ain’t mistook your callin’,” 

That, from Uncle Ed, was most encouraging. 


VI 


NORTHWESTWARD HO! 


at Western Seminary in the spring of 1878, I had 

been deeply interested in missionaries and their ef- 
forts in heathen countries. The lives of Moffatt and Living- 
stone in Africa; of the Lowries in China; of Judson and Mar- 
tyn in India; and of Brainerd, Eliot and others among the 
American Indians, were read over and over, and filled me with 
longing to emulate their efforts in far-away parts of the world. 
I am conscious that the love of adventure and a desire to travel 
had, perhaps, as much to do with shaping my missionary life 
as the love of souls. The dangers of such a life and the pos- 
sibility of martyrdom in it were not deterrents but stimulants. 

My ill health made missionary life in hot countries impos- 
sible. My father’s friend and classmate, Dr. John C. Lowrie, 
then secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 
was written to by my father concerning my aspirations to be a 
missionary, and, having visited us at French Creek, gave it as 
his positive opinion that I must put out of my plans forever 
all hope of a missionary career: I could not pass a physical 
examination; it would be suicide to attempt such a life. “ Let 
Hall seek a comfortable charge where the work is not too 
hard,” he wrote, “and give up all thought of being a mis- 
sionary.” 

That did not settle the matter for me, however. During my 
senior year several offers of calls to the pastorate were tendered 
me, but I had not relinquished my desire to go to a heathen 
land. Then, just before Christmas, there came to the sem- 
inary a stubby, little, sawed-off man, with grizzled beard, who 

62 


1) URING almost all my life previous to my graduation 





NORTHWESTWARD HO! 63 


put before us a new and neglected heathen country within the 
boundaries of our own United States. The man was Dr. Shel- 
don Jackson, known to us all as the editor of The Rocky 
Mountain Presbyterian, and as a Western pioneer. He told us 
of the new, raw land of the far Northwest—dubbed ‘“ Seward’s 
Folly ” and “ Uncle Sam’s Ice-Box,” with its thirty-five thou- 
sand heathen natives, for whose evangelization nothing what- 
ever had been done by any Protestant denomination. His pic- 
tures of Alaska were not all accurate, owing to lack of full in- 
formation at that time, but they were striking, and his appeal 
made a great impression upon at least two members of our 
class, Harry McClelland and myself. We plied Dr. Jackson 
with questions and, at his suggestion, sent for the only avail- 
able book on Alaska at that time, the one recently written by 
William H. Dall of the Smithsonian Institute of Washington 
City. 

Dall was one of the explorers employed by the Western Tele- 
graph Company to navigate the Yukon River from its source 
to its mouth, and to select a line for the establishment of a 
telegraph service across the country to Cape Prince of Wales 
on Bering Straits, there to connect with a Siberian telegraph 
line which would unite the United States with the European 
countries by instant electric flash. Immense outlays of money 
were provided, and a company of bold young men eagerly 
traversed the Northwestern wilds, making many discoveries 
and partially surveying the great interior. Although the suc- 
cess of Cyrus W. Field’s Atlantic cable halted this enterprise, 
yet the information gathered by these men greatly aided 
Seward to put through Congress in 1867 his bill for the pur- 
chase of Russian America by the United States. Dall pub- 
lished his large volume on Alaska in the early seventies. It 
has remained Alaska’s classic until this day, although a thou- 
sand inaccuracies appear in it to one who reads it now with the 
fuller knowledge obtained since that early reconnaisance. 


64 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


To our eager minds, Alaska became a land of enchantment. 
Its hardships and difficulties called aloud to us to overcome 
them. Its heathen multitudes were a reproach to Christendom. 
Harry and I promptly wrote to the secretaries of the Board 
of Home Missions offering ourselves as missionaries to Alaska. 
We were promptly accepted, and Doctors Kendall and Dixon 
wrote us many letters of encouragement and instruction. 
To my great disappointment my chum Harry was compelled 
to abandon the project, and remain in Pennsylvania. His 
reason—a potent one—was this: His father had died and left 
his mother with a number of younger children, and Harry must 
stay in the East to help her take care of her fatherless brood. 
Harry’s grief at his compelled change of plans was no greater 
than mine at losing his companionship. He became a great 
preacher to important charges in Pennsylvania and West Vir- 
ginia and ranked high in the Church. Near the close of his 
life he told me that his failure to go to Alaska was the greatest 
disappointment of all his experiences. What a missionary he 
would have made! 

During all of the remaining weeks of my senior year at the 
seminary I was preparing for the great adventure of my life. I 
got in touch by letter with two of the finest friends of the 
Northwest who ever lived, Rev. Dr. A. L. Lindsley, pastor of 
the First Presbyterian Church of Portland, Oregon, and Mrs. 
A. R. McFarland, the first American missionary to Alaska. 
Dr. Lindsley was chairman of the Foreign Mission Commit- 
tee for the Northwest. He was on intimate terms with Gen- 
eral O. O. Howard, then in command of the United States 
forces in the Pacific Coast district. Dr. Lindsley heard from 
General Howard of the interesting natives of Southeastern 
Alaska and of their entire neglect by all of the evangelical 
churches of North America. The general gave him some star- 
tling pictures of these natives as he saw them at Fort Wran- 
gell and Sitka—pictures full of sordid and disgusting shadows; 





NORTHWESTWARD HO! 65 


the heathen superstitions and strange habits of the wild fisher- 
men; the lack of morality, as Christian nations understand the 
term, making the girls and women an easy prey to lustful sol- 
diers and traders; the Indian medicine-men, the witchcraft, the 
queer totemic system and primitive customs—all these lights 
and shadows blended in the general’s unlovely pictures. 
Thirty-five thousand heathen natives in a land without law, 
order or protection! The shameful neglect of this, America’s 
last frontier, was a reproach to civilization. 

Dr. Lindsley, through his letters published in The New York 
Evangelist and other periodicals, tried to arouse the Church to 
some sense of shame in view of these appalling facts. I wrote 
to him, and received very satisfactory and illuminating replies. 

Then commenced my correspondence with Mrs. McFarland, 
who was doing an almost hopeless work under conditions that 
were unique in their multiplex difficulties. She was making 
frantic appeals for help to the women of her Church in the 
States. She described as intimately as modesty permitted the 
complete breaking down of the native system so far as it con- 
cerned the care of young girls, the hideous diseases, and the 
impossibility of purity and morality under those conditions. 
She appealed for a home into which she could gather the pretty 
and interesting little Thlingit and Hyda girls, away from their 
community houses where fifty or sixty men, women and chil- 
dren lived huddled together in one room; ate there, slept there, 
and cooked over a common log fire—no decency, no modesty, 
no morality and no sanitation possible. She told of heathen 
mothers bartering their own daughters for a blanket or two. 
She described the cruelty of the Indian medicine-men; the sys- 
tem of slavery and the constantly threatening warfare between 
the different Indian tribes and families. 

Besides Dall’s book, I read Bancroft’s imperfect and faulty 
description of Alaska in his United States History, as well as 
the arguments in the halls of Congress during the negotiations 


66 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


for the purchase of Russian America. The mounting difficul- 
ties of my enterprise urged haste; the adverse advice of well- 
meaning friends but made me more determined. It seemed 
that none of my friends or advisers wished me to go to the 
“Land of Ice and Snow.” Three of the four physicians con- 
sulted told me that my departure for Alaska would be delib- 
erate suicide. ‘‘ You will not live a year in such a climate,” 
they said. The other doctor, my country physician of French 
Creek, stuttered, “‘ W-w-well, it m-m-may k-k-kill you, but it 
m-m-may m-m-make a m-m-man of you.” The news that 
John G. Brady, a theological student of Union Seminary, New 
York, and Miss Fannie E. Kellogg, a niece of Dr. Lindsley, 
had been appointed to mission work in Alaska soon after the 
New Year, of 1878, increased my impatience. 

After graduation at Western Theological Seminary in May 
I met Doctors Kendall and Dixon at the denomination’s Gen- _ 
eral Assembly, which convened in Pittsburgh that year, and 
completed plans for my speedy departure to my new field. 
The secretaries of the Board invited me to dine-.with them, 
and gave me much excellent advice. At least, it seemed good 
to me then; but in the light of fuller experience much of it 
appears now to have been wrong and absurd. ‘‘ Now, my 
boy,” roared Dr. Kendall, shaking his bushy gray eyebrows at 
me in a way he had, “‘ we are depending on you to do the 
most important work of a pioneer missionary in a strange land. 
We depend upon you to translate the Bible into those heathen 
tongues and make a dictionary and a grammar of their lan- 
guages. Your business is to preach the Gospel to those 
heathens and convert their souls. You will have to visit the 
different tribes in Alaska from St. Michael on the west to Fort 
Wrangell on the southeast. Doubtless, you will have to dress 
in furs and live in underground houses. If those Indians 
scalp you, we will canonize you as a martyr, but don’t let them 
do it if you can help it.” 





NORTHWESTWARD HO! 67 


Then he suddenly checked himself. “ But say,” he ex- 
claimed. ‘ What about a wife? We can’t send you up there 
alone—you must have a wife. Have you got one ready? ” 

“No,” I replied. ‘“ None of the fair sex has taken pity on 
my forlorn condition as yet.” 

“ This won’t do at all,” he said. ‘‘ That’s easily remedied— 
just come with me now to the basement of the church, where 
the ladies are serving dinner, and I’ll introduce you to a dozen 
young ladies who would be glad to go with you into the mis- 
sionary work.” 

“ But I don’t want a dozen wives,” I answered. 

He hauled me away to the refreshment room, and I had a 
jolly evening, but, needless to say, nothing came of it. Re- 
luctantly, the secretaries agreed to let me go to Alaska un- 
married. But let me say here, with all earnestness, that they 
were right in their objections. No condition or position of 
men anywhere in the world so demands the comfort, counsel 
and moral safeguard of a good wife as that of missionary to a 
heathen people. Fortunately for myself and my work, I met 
my fate immediately upon my arrival in Alaska. But the 
records of disaster, of moral deterioration, mental lapse and 
physical failure on the part of unmarried missionaries, male 
and female, are many and sad. The missionary without a 
wife (or husband) is the loneliest creature on the face of the 
earth. Some noble men and women who remained single have 
left immortal names; but it is unsafe and cruel to subject 
human beings to such trials. Of late years I have refused to 
sanction the appointment of any single person to those isolated 
posts where the only companions were natives. 

Then came a visit to my parents in Parkersburg, West Vir- 
ginia, the journey with my father to the meeting of Presbytery 
at Buckhannon, and my ordination. The incidents that clus- 
tered about this ordination were of more than ordinary interest. 
Buckhannon is only ten miles from French Creek, and a mul- 


68 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


titude of our relatives and friends attended. The romance of 
the departure of Loyal Young’s son as a missionary to the wild 
country of the far Northwest equaled in excitement Loyal’s 
own departure fifty years before on his barefoot tramp of two 
hundred miles to college. 

My father was always particularly happy in his selection of 
texts, and had the habit of keeping a dozen or two of them, well 
analyzed, on his desk for future use. On this occasion he 
preached a sermon in delivering his charge to me. He selected 
Second Timothy, Chapter I, verses 1-6. He made this daring 
paraphrase: 

“Loyal Young, a minister of Jesus Christ by the will of 
God—to Samuel Hall, my dearly beloved son; grace, mercy, 
and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord; 
I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with 
pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of 
thee in my prayers night and day . . . when I call to re- 
membrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt 
first in thy grandmother, Lydia, and thy mother, Margaret; 
and, I am persuaded, in thee also. Wherefore, I put thee in 
remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in 
thee by the putting on of my hands.” 

The tender charge that followed, if indeed I heard it, has 
entirely gone from my memory. With the rest of the congre- 
gation that flooded the little church, I was too badly broken 
up to listen. 

Big farewell meetings at Buckhannon and French Creek, 
drawing to them a large part of the population of Upshur 
County, followed. Then the return to Parkersburg—more 
meetings and the overwhelming accumulation of presents from 
Butler, French Creek and Parkersburg. The universal con- 
ception of Alaska was a picture of glaciers, icebergs, snow- 
capped peaks, fur-clad Eskimo, seals and polar bears. Enough 
warm clothing poured in to furnish a small dry-goods store. I 





NORTHWESTWARD HO! 69 


began even to pity myself and to see the shining of my halo 
as I went about my preparations for departure. 

I took train on the tenth of June. The only transcontinental 
line at that time was the Union Pacific. Delays on the railroad 
and a severe storm on the Pacific Ocean made me too late to 
catch the little monthly Alaska steamer “ California ” at Port- 
land. I remained, the guest of a wonderful hospitality, in the 
home of Dr. Lindsley. From this great man I learned more 
about my field than would have been possible from any other 
source. He was not only the Father of Alaska Missions, but 
the loving and bountiful parent of all the early missionaries. 

A side trip, taken while awaiting the next steamer, up the 
Columbia River to Walla Walla, thence in a buggy with my 
boyhood friend, Rev. Robert Boyd, the son of Father’s Butler 
elder, to Lewiston, Idaho, and thence in Boyd’s buggy to 
Lapwai and Kamiah, gave me my first acquaintance with Indian 
life and missions. Sue MacBeth, with her little theological 
seminary, shed light on my path, and my sixty-mile lope to 
Kamiah on the back of my first cayuse, in company with Elder 
Billie Williams, makes my bones ache still when I think of it. 
I held communion at both these Indian churches and reported 
upon the situation to the Board of Foreign Missions. The 
battle which was then being waged on the Columbia River be- 
tween General Howard’s forces and the Bannock Indians gave 
a taste of frontier life, and delayed me so that I had to take a 
ferry to Kalama on the Washington shore of the Columbia 
River, thence travel by rail to Tacoma and by a tiny steamboat 
northward on Puget Sound to Port Townsend—and thence 
across the Strait of San Juan De Fuca to the little old English 
town of Victoria. 

There I caught the “ California,” and began my voyage of 
enchantment through the longest series of inland bays, straits 
and fiords in the world. Our little launch, at that time, did 
not even stop at Seattle, which was a negligible hamlet of log 


70 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


huts and board shanties built around a sawmill. The thousand 
miles between Tacoma and Fort Wrangell has been described 
so often that it may well be passed over here. However, the 
fascination which held me spellbound on that first trip and 
made me loath to leave the deck for eating or sleeping, still 
persists, and even intensifies, every time I make that voyage. 
I cannot understand the purblindness of my friend, Archdeacon 
Stuck, when in one of his interesting books he says concerning 
the scenery of the Northwestern Coast: “It is fine scenery, but 
the same scenery.” He calls it monotonous, and compares it 
unfavourably with the fiords of Norway and the mountains of 
Switzerland. In justice to my friend, I am constrained to be- 
lieve what I have been told by those who traveled with him, 
that the Archdeacon never saw the finest of our coast scenes; 
that he slept almost continuously during the voyage, and when 
awake sat in the cabin writing his reports. 

To me there is no sameness in the intricate passages among 
the three thousand islands of the British Columbia and Alaska 
Coasts. Each turn of the narrow channel reveals a vista of 
fresh beauty and wonder; each island is a separate bouquet 
arranged by the Great Artist with a view to a special and beau- 
tiful effect. ‘The shimmering light of one day and hour is 
totally unlike that which preceded or succeeded it; no two 
glaciers have been exactly alike, have scored the mountains 
in the same way, or have scooped out hollows and bays of the 
same pattern or with the same colours. The stories of all the 
miles are as distinct and varied as the tales of the Arabian 
Thousand and One Nights. Here, as in every voyage, the dif- 
ference is in the “lookers ” and not in the scenes witnessed. 
Alaska is as you take it, and the failure of any one to see the 
glories of this voyage, and his or her inability to describe them, 
but excite pity. 

Here is a good place to tell the story of three sets of eyes 
viewing the same scenes in this unique voyage. It happened 





NORTHWESTWARD HO! 71 


four or five years after this first trip, when tourists had begun 
to traverse the fiords and winding passages to Alaska. We 
were passing through the amazing Grenville Channel and 
Graham Reach. Aspiring forests reaching eager hands up the 
gorges and scaling the mountain sides; myriad-coloured rocks 
of fantastic shapes; a thousand milk-white waterfalls leaping 
from mountain breasts; fairy-like islands peering from en- 
chanting vistas; the scene changing every minute; all of it 
a thrilling phantasmagoria, enough to lift one’s soul from his 
body! 

Fearful of losing a single one of these flashing views, I was 
leaning over the rail, peering fore and aft, up and around, en- 
joying the bliss of Heaven, when a young man of the then 
newly discovered species “‘ dude” came to my side, and began 
to drawl out his words in an affected, weary fashion that acted 
upon me like a sudden discord in one of Chopin’s moving 
strains. It was evident from his conversation that he had trav- 
eled all over the face of the globe; knew more than all its sages, 
and had seen, tested and proved valueless all that was to be 
viewed anywhere. 

“ S-a-a-y,” he said, “‘ they rave about this scenery—why, we 
haven’t seen any! ” (The boat was just returning from the 
newly discovered Glacier Bay and Muir Glacier.) ‘“‘ All we’ve 
seen was just a repetition of the same things, islands and ice 
and mountains and water. S-a-a-y, yuh ought to visit Switzer- 
land” ; and so on and on. 

I broke away from this torture, and went towards the prow 
of the steamer. Suddenly came dancing up from the cabin a 
beautiful girl of seventeen. She glanced at the fine waterfall 
we were passing, clasped her hands and exclaimed: “‘ O-o-h! ” 
then danced back and called down the companionway, “ Sue, 
Sue, come here quick! ” This brought another fairy-like crea- 
ture, who came out, looked at the cascade and swept with rapid 
glance the mountain, the shoulder of land a few rods distant 


72 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


and the sea. ‘“ Yes—pretty, isn’t it? Say, Jen, come on back, 
and finish our game of casino,” and away they tripped. 

I climbed to the upper deck, and there I saw a man whom 
I had met during the two days we had been together on the 
boat, and who sat at the same table in the dining hall. He had 
been introduced to me as Sir , an English nobleman. 
He was a majestic looking man, six feet in height, broad-shoul- 
dered, with aquiline features and long grizzled beard; a man of 
much reserve, saying little but, when he did speak, evincing a 
fine courtesy. He had visited our mission at Wrangell and had 
shown much interest in a stately way. He was standing, stat- 
uesque and motionless, looking towards the mountains. I 
moved nearer, thinking to speak to him; but when I glanced at 
his face I saw the tears streaming from his eyes and trickling 
down his beard. Aus 

Here was a silence I could*not break. Here was an inner 
sanctuary I must not enter. I paused. We stood apart, and 
yet most intimately together, and communed in a silence so 
deep and so sweet that words would have added nothing to our 
enjoyment or mutual understanding, but rather would have 
put to flight its ecstasy. Alaska views need both eyes and a 
soul, to see them. 








VII 


UP AGAINST IT 


little steamer “‘ California.” This was Mr. McKay, 

the chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company at 
Victoria. He was a fine-looking, genial, clear-eyed Scotchman 
who had worked his way up through many outposts of the 
company throughout the great Dominion of Canada. As was 
required of all the Hudson’s Bay employees at that time, he 
had an Indian wife. Though self-educated, he was well edu- 
cated, keen in judgment, and-able to clearly express clear 
ideas. We had been talking over the different Indian tribes 
and the missionary ‘enterprises in British Columbia. I eagerly 
absorbed his superior wisdom on these topics and pestered 
him with numberless questions. ‘ 

It was very early in the morning of July 10, 1878, when the 
steamer inched up to the little, poorly constructed, flimsy wharf 
at Fort Wrangell. Day was just breaking, a drizzly rain soak- 
ing everything, the mist hiding all the mountains and the 
islands. As we were nearing the landing, McKay gave me 
what I think was the most valuable piece of advice I ever re- 
ceived. He said: ‘Mr. Young, you are new to this country 
and to the enterprise in which you are engaged. I am in- 
terested in you and in your work. Will you permit me to 
give you a bit of advice? ” 

“ I shall be very thankful for it,” I replied. 

“Tt is this: Don’t become an Indian.” 

There were but two persons on the rickety dock; the cap- 
tain was giving his orders preparatory to tying up. One was a 

io 


r “HERE was but one passenger besides myself on the 


74 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


little wizened, bow-legged German, whom we always called 
“Lou Decker,” but whose real name was. Ludecke—a bit of 
flotsam left by the United States Army tide when it receded 
from Alaska a year before my arrival. His business was to 
take the lines of the vessel and slip them over the piles on 
the dock. The other individual was a native, clad in a dirty, 
once-white Hudson Bay blanket, a pair of muslin trousers, and 
moccasins. His face was smeared with blotches of lampblack 
and grease—the aie gine cosmetic of the Alaska natives at 
_that period. 

Mr. McKay’s bit of advice nettled me. It seemed a reflec- 
tion on my wisdom and common sense. 

“Why,” I exclaimed, “ do you think I am in danger of get- 
ting to look like that fellow? ” 

“Now, don’t be offended,” he said with a smile. ‘“‘ Let me 
tell you a little story.” 

He told me of a young missionary couple, fresh from> Eng- 
land, who had arrived in Northern British Columbia fifteen or 
twenty years previously, assigned to a large tribe situated up 
one of the principal streams of that region. They were landed 
by a Hudson’s Bay Company’ s boat, and theh taken by Indian 
canoes to a large village a hundred miles up the river. They 
were the only white people within a radius of one hundred and 
fifty miles. They were received by the head chief, and in- 
stalled as members of a family of forty or fifty in his great 
community house of split cedar. Indian men and women clad 
in blankets and furs, and little naked boys and ‘girls, formed 
the rest of the family. Here the missionaries had to live until 
they could provide a building of their own, spreading their 
blankets on the platform which ran around the one room, cook- 
ing over the common fire of logs in the center of the floor, shar- 
ing in the primitive life of these children of the forest. They 
hung blankets over one corner of the upper of the two plat- 
. forms, forming a little room in which was their bed. This was 





UP AGAINST IT 75 


the only semblance of privacy in that Indian house, and this 
was a mere make-believe, as the Indians moved freely in and 
out of the little bedroom, and most of the time it was thrown 
open to the view of the other persons in the house. 

Whatever qualms of modesty the missionaries felt at first 
soon disappeared as they adapted themselves to their environ- 
ment. When after several months the lumber for their new 
house arrived, they concluded to show their friendliness by re- 
maining a while longer in the chief’s house. The upshot was 
that they continued to stay there for a year or two, and when 
they did build their house they made it after the Indian fash- 
ion. They learned the native language as soon as possible, and 
in order to perfect themselves in it and to be able to “ think 
Indian,” they used it entirely in their conversation with one 
another. When their children arrived the parents talked only 
the Indian language to them, and, of course, they grew up lit- 
tle savages like the other children. The missionaries did the 
Indians some good, translating the Prayer Book and parts of 
the Bible into the native language, and composing hymns 
which were sung to the common tunes. They instilled some 
notions of purity, morality and Christianity into the natives, 
but learned and practiced far more of what the Indians taught 
them than the Indians learned of them. They met the natives 
more than half-way. 

Gradually they became so inured to the life lived by the 
savages that they ceased to care for civilization, neglected their 
correspondence with the London missionary society, and some- 
times would let a year or more elapse before seeing any one of 
their own race. When their children grew to school age, and 
the parents were forced to realize that they were nothing more 
than ignorant little savages, they slowly made up their minds 
to send them to Victoria to be educated. The children had 
first to learn to talk English! The missionaries had become 
Indians. * 


76 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


I could not but believe Mr. McKay’s story, but not until the 
deadly pull of that isolated and barbarous environment began 
to make itself felt did I realize the wisdom of his advice. I 
then set for myself a strict standard of conduct which, while 
showing kindness and friendship, would draw a plainly marked 
line between our home and the life of the natives. 

Fort Wrangell had more than the semblance of a fort in 
78. A stockade ten or twelve feet high, formed of logs set up 
on end and sunk into the ground and bolted together with 
great iron spikes, enclosed a barracks and parade ground some 
two acres in extent. Great gates of split logs swung on huge 
hinges gave egress on opposite sides to the “ Foreign Village,” 
and to the stores and dwellings of the trading post and the 
Stickeen Town around the bay. “ Beautiful for situation ” was 
this old Russian and Hudson’s Bay Trading Post. Etolin Har- 
bour is a charming little circular lagoon with ‘“ Fort Point ” at 
its northern entrance and the promontory called Shustaak’s 
Point at its southern. Around this bay, in groups according to 
the Stickeen families, were the large native houses. 

These were all of one pattern, from thirty to sixty feet 
square, built of split cedar plank set on end—windowless, the 
roof, almost flat, supported by hewn logs erected on posts at 
the four corners, the inevitable smoke-hole with its adjustable 
flap in the middle. In front of the more pretentious houses 
were carved totem poles. 

Back of the town arose a hill some eight hundred feet in 
height which was afterwards named “ Muir’s Mountain.” The 
town lies near the northernmost point of Wrangell Island, which 
is about twenty miles in length and separated from the main- 
land by a narrow channel. Six or seven miles north of it is 
the mouth of the Stickeen River, a rapid stream navigable for 
small steamboats for one hundred and fifty miles. The flats 
of Farm Island, and the picturesque heights of Brown’s Pyra- 
mid, Five Mile, Vanks and other islands enclose the beautiful 





UP AGAINST IT 77 


bay. Eight miles directly west of the town looms the point of 
Woronkofski Island, afterwards called by my wife ‘‘ Elephant 
Point ” because of its striking resemblance to the huge pachy- 
derm. A range of great rugged, snow-crowned peaks, Castle 
Rock and the Devil’s Thumb looming highest, forms the 
background of this, one of Alaska’s most beautiful harbours. 

This town, so attractive in its approach and yet so squalid 
on closer acquaintance, was to be my home for ten years, and 
the strategic point from which I was to direct the battle of 
Christian civilization against heathenism. That gray morning 
with its air of dreariness and desolation drove my blood back 
to my heart with a sickening surge. Besides the little Dutch- 
man and the black-faced Siwash, the only living creatures were 
a lot of ravens, the first I had seen, which cawed a dismal 
warning of coming disaster. The whole-hearted welcome of 
Mrs. McFarland, who hurled her two hundred pounds of 
good nature out onto the wharf with surprising agility, and of 
John Vanderbilt, a cultured gentleman from New York City, 
representing the wholesale merchants of Portland as receiver 
for the “ King Lear Stores,” soon breezed away the mental 
mists. A hot breakfast at Mrs. McFarland’s table and an in- 
formal reception to the Christian Indians—Tow-a-att, Mat- 
thew, Moses, Aaron and our interpreter, Mrs. Dickinson—and 
a few other natives filled the hour or two before the steamer 
sailed on for Sitka. The natives who had been eagerly awaiting 
my arrival were dismayed when I announced my intention of 
going on to Sitka and returning by the steamer. They asked 
Mrs. McFarland if they couldn’t bring ropes and tie me up. 
My pass, however, took me to the end of the route, and I 
wished to see the historic capital of Russian America and more 
especially our missionary force—Rev. John G. Brady and Miss 
Fannie Kellogg, who had been sent to Sitka four months 
previous. 

At that time the Alexandrian Archipelago, with its eleven 


78 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


hundred wooded islands, forming what is known as the Pan 
Handle, was entirely unsurveyed. Vancouver’s map, made by 
the great English navigator in the first years of the nineteenth 
century, was the only chart of those waters. A few main chan- 
nels had been rudely sketched, but the great majority of the 
straits, sounds, and inlets were not on any map. Among these 
uncharted passages was Peril Strait, between Chichagof and 
Baranof Islands. Therefore our little steamer had to sail 
around Cape Ommaney, subjecting its passengers for six or 
seven hours to the swell of the open ocean. I was unconscious 
that I was sailing to meet my fate, and was almost too seasick 
to get out of my berth when we reached the “ Naples Bay ”’ 
of North America. 

A day in the interesting old town, with its little blockhouse on 
the hill, its castle of the Baranofs perched on a high knob 
looking out to sea, its Russian barracks and stiff plain houses 
of hewn logs, its imposing Greek Cathedral with the green 
domes looming high, and beyond the old barracks the squalid 
community houses—all these made the day too short. But 
far more interesting was the walk I took with Miss Kellogg 
through Lovers’-Lane to Indian River—the grove that has 
since been improved and made into the most beautiful little 
park in North America. I must confess that the stately trees 
of hemlock and spruce impressed me much less than the lively 
young lady at my side. She showed me her school district, and 
we walked as far along the filth-strewn beach in front of the 
Indian ‘“ Ranch” as our sense of modesty and our olfactory 
nerves could stand. We met the good-natured priest, Father 
Metropolski, who, although the steamer had been in harbour 
but a short time, was already far gone from the effects of the 
potations given him by our captain. 

Miss Kellogg’s schoolroom was in the Barracks, and there 
were gathered on school days from fifty to seventy pupils rang- 
ing in age from six to sixty. She laughingly said that she had 





UP AGAINST IT 79 


a new set of pupils each day, and that their faces were so 
changed in appearance by the varying degrees of cleanliness 
that she couldn’t recognize them and sometimes had enrolled 
the same scholar three or four times, under different names. 
Beyond teaching them their A B C’s and the brighter young 
men and women the primaries of arithmetic, and instilling 
patriotism by showing the boys how to whistle ‘“‘ Yankee- 
Doodle,” she confessed that her task as teacher seemed almost 
hopeless. During the feasting season, which lasted until the 
winter stores of dried salmon and seal grease had been all 
consumed, and the natives were forced to depart in the spring 
days to their fishing, bird-egg gathering, and clam-digging 
places, Miss Kellogg said that the young men and women 
would be absent from school for days at a time. When asked 
for an excuse they would answer: ‘‘ Oh—me dance all night.” 

“ But why don’t you come to school in the daytime? ” 

“ Oh, me sleep all day.” 

Night after night, during this time of native “ potlatches,”’ 
Miss Kellogg, whose house was a cottage built as officers’ quar- 
ters next to the stockade which separated the parade ground 
from the ‘‘ Ranch,” said that the drunken Indians, yelling and 
howling, would charge up to the gate until stopped by the 
sentry from invading the ‘‘ white man’s town.” Miss Kellogg 
was never known to be afraid of anything in all her life, and 
so was less agitated by this nightly peril than I was in hearing 
of it. Of course, Mr. Brady, who did not take his missionary 
work very seriously, did what he could to help the “ school- 
marm,” and held Sunday services in the schoolroom. 

Miss Kellogg was about to accept the invitation of Mrs. 
McFarland to go to Fort Wrangell and spend a month between 
steamers with her. So we went back together, and before she 
returned to Sitka in August we had agreed to abandon the 
loneliness of celibacy for the companionship of matrimony. 
In December I returned to Sitka and took my bride back to 


80 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


the mother mission. This was my introduction to the hitherto 
unknown land of Alaska and the little known and much mis- 
understood native inhabitants. 

The chief stimulus to trade in Wrangell, and the circum- 
stance which gave it preéminence as a shipping and trading 
port in Alaska, was the existence of placer mines in what was 
known as the Cassiar Region of British Columbia. This was 
reached by way of the Stickeen River. 

As early as 1860 some natives of the Stickeen tribe, and a 
French Canadian by the name of Alex Choquette, discovered 
gold on a gravel bar in the bed of the Stickeen River. It was 
named ‘“‘ Buck’s Bar,” Buck being the name by which Cho- 
quette was commonly known. The small “ diggins ” attracted 
a few hardy men, who in turn became prospectors, and ranged 
the country beyond. In conjunction with two men who con- 
sumed two years in crossing the continent from Hudson’s Bay, 
they found rich deposits of gold in the country around Deese 
Lake and beyond. 

Thus began the Cassiar Stampede, attracting thousands of 
adventurers in 1873-4. These all went to that region by way of 
Fort Wrangell and the Stickeen River. Although many of the 
smaller gold-bearing creeks had been worked out and the ex- 
citement had abated by 1878, yet more than a thousand eager 
men were still in this large gold region. Most of them came 
out to Fort Wrangell when the cold weather began, wintered 
in Victoria or Portland or in their homes on the Coast, and re- 
turned to the mines by the same route in the spring. 

To supply these miners, at first the only reliance was upon 
Indian canoes to take themselves and their goods up the river. 
Soon light-draft river steamers were built, and these trans- 
ported horses and mules for packing machinery to work the 
mines, and the provisions and other supplies needed by the 
miners. But still large numbers of natives were employed as 
carriers to take these supplies to points inaccessible by steamer, 





UP AGAINST IT 81 


to act as packers and even to work as day labourers in the 
mines. 

These opportunities for work at wages, which were small but 
seemed large to the natives, as well as the gathering of a num- 
ber of merchants to Fort Wrangell with supplies of new, 
strange and attractive goods, drew the attention and presence 
of the Indians from eighteen or twenty different tribes and 
from distances ranging from sixty to four hundred miles. 
Previous to the opening up of this large trading point and 
the Cassiar mines these different tribes, numbering from two 
hundred to a thousand or more, were, if not in an actual state 
of war with each other, at least in a condition of jealousy and 
suspicion. There had been, from times beyond record, bloody 
wars which dotted the whole Archipelago with names such as 
“ Massacre Cove,” “‘ Ambush Inlet,” ‘‘ Battle Passage,” “ Dead 
Man’s Island.” It had not been many years since the two 
powerful tribes of Sitka and Stickeen almost exterminated each 
other, and they were still on the watch and afraid to invade 
each other’s territory. Likewise the Hoochenoos and Stick- 
eens, the Chilcats and the Hoonahs, the Tacoos and the Auks, 
the Kakes and the Hanegas, the Tongass and the Hydas, all 
eyed each other, and the remembrance of former outrages 
rankled in their hearts and made them all tinder towards any 
sudden sparks which might be struck from the flint and steel 
of new grievances. 

Many a time after I had begun my work of exploration and 
visiting the different tribes, when we would be lying in our 
blankets in front of our camp fire, my Indians would say: 

“ Before you come we no do this. When night come, we put 
out fire and go way off in woods to sleep.” 

“ Why? ” I would ask. 

“Oh, Injuns scared—mebbe some other Injun, mad at us, 
come in night time and kill us.” 

Besides the tribal wars there were family feuds amounting 


82 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


to a state of “ watchful waiting.” Every totemic family of 
every tribe in all that region had its feuds, its disputes and 
complaints, and these were recounted by both men and women, 
with endless iteration, around the fire of every community 
house. The tribes kept strictly to their own territory and 
each family had its hunting and fishing place, its bird-egg 
island, its herring-roe beach, its clam-beds, its salmon stream. 
By tradition law, no other native was allowed to encroach upon 
these hereditary rights. 

At the time of the founding of our mission in Alaska these 
warring tribes, contrary to all precedent, were coming together 
to Fort Wrangell to trade and to find employment. It was 
the home of the Stickeen, formerly one of the richest and most 
warlike tribes of the Territory. It had numbered at least a 
thousand, forty or fifty years before that time, but by the wars 
with the Sitkas and Chilcats, and by the more deadly diseases 
introduced by the whites, their number had been reduced until 
there were only from four to five hundred who called them- 
selves Stickeens. They occupied the shores of Etolin Harbour, 
and the different families, with their sub-chiefs, built their 
houses in groups around the circular shore, keeping, if possible, 
at musket-range distance from each other. Thus Tow-a-att’s 
family built their houses nearest to the trading post and Fort; 
then the Kadishan family; beyond that Shakes, on a little in-. 
land peninsula; farther on, in the curve of the bay, the Frog 
Family, whose chief man was Jake Johnson; then old Kasch, 
with his retainers; and on the sharp peninsula which curved 
in and formed the harbour was the hard old heathen chief, 
Shustaak. In some cases tall stockades had been erected be- 
tween these groups of family houses, behind which and through 
port-holes piercing them family feuds had been fought out. 

But with the advent of the white soldiers, miners, and 
traders, the Indians from all the tribes of the Archipelago 
came pouring into Fort Wrangell. They were not allowed by 





UP AGAINST IT 83 


the Stickeens to build even their bark shacks within the har- 
bour, but camped in what we called the Foreign Town, up the 
beach towards the point of the island. A few of the Takoos and 
Kakes who had intermarried with the Stickeens were allowed 
to erect houses within the harbour, but almost all of the strange 
Indians camped in the other village. They built shacks of 
bark or split planks, and some of them whip-sawed lumber and 
erected rude cabins. When I reached Wrangell the whole In- 
dian population was estimated at about twenty-five hundred 
people. It was constantly shifting, and any day might be 
witnessed canoes of all sizes, from the big war canoe capable’ 
of holding fifty warriors, to the small one-man dugout, pad- 
dling across the bay in front of the Fort. 

Imagine the insecurity, the unstable equilibrium of this 
heterogeneous mass! Strange tribes speaking strange dialects 
met for the first time in this camp, looked askance at one 
another, and went about their business with always a side look 
of fear and suspicion. The soldiers while they were present 
suppressed with a stern hand the first appearance of trouble 
between the tribes. But for the most part the officers of the 
Fort knew nothing of what was going on in either camp. The 
Fort lay directly between the Stickeen town and the foreigners, 
and the only way from one to the other when the tide was up 
was through the gates of the Fort. Murders, robberies, 
torturing of witches and even the sacrifice of slaves might go 
on—and did—without the officers knowing or inquiring about 
these occurrences. 

Four or five years after the building of the Fort, at the 
erection of a large new community house and big totem pole 
to make good the name of the new chief who had taken the 
place of the deceased Shustaak, ten slaves were brained at one 
time with the same greenstone ax and sent to wait upon the 
deceased chief in “ Sickagow,” the Happy Hunting Ground of 
the Thlingits. Of this massacre the commanding officer of the 


84 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Fort knew nothing or, if it was reported to him, no investiga- 
tion was made. Again and again throughout the ten years of 
the occupancy of the Fort, witches were tortured and killed, 
drunken men murdered one another, family arrayed itself 
against family, making demands of payment for some real or 
fancied grievance, and the whole camp was a mine ready to ex- 
plode on the slightest provocation. 

When the soldiers were withdrawn in the spring of ’77 the 
condition became still more menacing. The old Indian laws 
had been broken down by the coming of the whites, who had 
provided nothing in their place. There was not a law of the 
United States that applied to this far-off Territory. There was 
not a magistrate, a court or police officer in the whole Terri- 
tory, no protection for life or property, no way of punishing 
crime. The only civil officers in the Territory were three or 
four customs collectors, who had no magisterial powers what- 
ever. The only semblance of authority was the old United 
States war vessel, the ‘ Jamestown,” a sailing vessel which 
with its captain, marines and sailors was sent up to take the 
place of the soldiers. It had to be towed up the Coast from 
San Francisco, and could not move out of Sitka Harbour with- 
out first sending, by the monthly mail, to San Francisco for a 
tug to tow it clear of the islands. There was one small steam 
launch on the deck of this vessel which was entirely unfit for 
cruising in the stormy passages of Southeastern Alaska. Wars 
might break out between the tribes, the whites might all be 
massacred, and the government of the United States would be 
entirely helpless to prevent these crimes or to wreak vengeance 
upon the perpetrators. 

On several occasions while the forts were occupied trouble 
arose between the white men and the natives. Then a revenue 
cutter had to be sent for, and the matter taken up by the of- 
ficers and settled, generally in a very awkward and unjust 
manner. Two or three years before our arrival a Kake chief 





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UP AGAINST IT 85 


was at Sitka with some of his retainers. He knew no English, 
nor did his servants. An order was issued forbidding the na- 
tives to come within the Fort during certain hours. The chief, 
not understanding what was required, made an effort to pass 
through the Fort. He was challenged by the sentry and when 
he paid no attention but went on, he was shot. The officer in 
charge was said to have given conflicting orders which led to 
this fatal termination. The natives were thrown into a panic 
and were enraged. They considered all white men as belonging 
to one family and each responsible for the acts of all the oth- 
ers. They laid an ambush in Peril Straits and killed two in- 
offensive white hunters or miners who were traveling about 
their own business. This was in accordance with the Indian 
law, which held the life of a chief as being of equal value to 
that of ten or twelve other men, and they were thus getting 
even for the death of their chief. 

An investigation was held; the gunboat “ Saranac ” was sent 
for. It steamed to the Kake village on Prince Frederick 
Sound and tried to apprehend the murderers, failing entirely 
to make the natives understand what was wanted or the justice 
of the position held by the government. After a day or two 
spent in futile powwows the “‘ Saranac ” opened fire on the large 
Kake village, smashing the houses and destroying the canoes, 
which were the most valued possessions of the natives. They 
were said to have killed two or three bedridden invalids who 
were unable to flee from the bombardment. The real mur- 
derers were never caught. Although the natives always felt 
keenly the injustice of this act of the government, yet it had 
this salutary effect: All the natives of the many tribes in the 
Alexandrian Archipelago realized that their villages were ex- 
posed to the fire of the gunboats, which could steam right up 
to them and blow them into the water, and that the United 
States Government, although indifferent to the lives of its dusky 
citizens, was jealously bent on protecting those of its white 


86 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


ones. The “ wan-o-wah ” (man-of-war) was the grand buga- 
boo of that coast. All the white men who came there, whether 
soldiers, miners, traders or missionaries, were held, not in rev- 
erence but in comparative security, because of the dread of 
vengeance from that strange and terrible monster, the ‘‘ wan- 
o-wah continyak ” (war steam-canoe). But this was really the 
only deterrent from violence and murder, except the friendship 
and respect which the natives felt for the superior white man. 

It is of great credit to these natives that, although the white 
men were taking their fishing places, gardens, and other “‘ il- 
lahes,” and were often cheating them and taking their prettiest 
girls as concubines and, worst of all, were plying them with 
poisonous liquor and teaching them how to make it themselves, 
yet during all the years from the purchase of Alaska until now 
there has never been an outbreak against the whites. It would 
have been an easy matter, after the soldiers were withdrawn, 
for the Indians to wipe out the whole white population, which 
was only about two hundred; to loot the stores and to take 
possession of all property of the whites. It would have been 
impossible for the government to run down the murderers. All 
they could have done would have been to blow up the villages 
and punish whatever individuals they might be able to catch, 
without knowing whether they were innocent or guilty. 

The Stickeens were a very proud tribe. They had the 
greatest salmon stream in all that region—the Stickeen River, 
besides fifteen or twenty other streams where the salmon and 
ooligan ran in season; rich herring fisheries, halibut and cod 
banks, and other fisheries were theirs. The woods of all of 
their islands were full of deer and bears. Mountain goats 
dotted the green pasture slopes along the mainland, gleaming 
like white mice in the sunlight. Up the Stickeen were plenty 
of moose and caribou, bears, black and brown, and all fur- 
bearing animals abounded. But, best of all, the Stickeen River 
was the road into the interior where the Taltan Indians held 





UP AGAINST IT 87 


the great fur country between the Coast Range and the Rocky 
Mountains. These ignorant “Stick Siwashes” could bring 
their furs to market only by way of the Stickeen River. The 
Stickeens were the “‘ middle-men,” and held the gateway to the 
market. They did not allow the interior Indians to come to 
the trading post, but themselves took canoe loads of guns, am- 
munition, blankets, steel tools, beads, calico, muslin and other 
things coveted by the Indians, and bartered them for furs at 
their own valuation. 

The old Hudson’s Bay story of piling beaver skins to the 
height of a long ten-dollar flintlock musket for the price of the 
gun was often realized by these Stickeen traders. The tribe 
grew rich beyond the wealth of any other tribe, unless it was 
the Chilcats, who had a similar advantage over the interior 
tribes back of them. The Stickeens grew proud and insolent. 
Before the American occupancy of Alaska their great war 
canoes made frequent raids down the Coast, attacking the vil- 
lages of the Queen Charlotte group of islands, those on the 
shores of Vancouver Island and the islands in the Gulf of 
Georgia. They possessed slaves, who were taken from the 
Puyallups and Neah Bays, and a few who were said to be de- 
scendants of the Chinooks at the mouth of the Columbia River. 
I estimated that there were at least forty slaves held by the 
Stickeens when I arrived at Wrangell. 

Such were the conditions that confronted Mrs. McFarland 
and myself when we arrived to undertake the tremendous task 
of changing these ignorant, strange, and very naughty children 
of the forest and sea from filthy savages to educated and re- 
fined Christian citizens. 


Vill 


THE QUEER PEOPLE 


Y dominant feeling, as I recall the impressions of 
Mi those first days at Fort Wrangell, was one of amuse- 
ment. Dumped down as I was into this queer cor- 
ner of the world, in an environment so entirely different from 
any to which I had been accustomed, I could at first but look 
and wonder. That strange dialect which all used—the whites 
with the Indians and the different tribes with each other— 
made me laugh. Picture the situation: Natives speaking five 
or six different languages, the white men speaking English, 
German, Russian and Scandinavian; the Chinook jargon chip- 
ping in to afford a common medium of communication between 
the different languages—imagine the confusion of tongues! 
Tsimpshean Indians, from Port Simpson and Old Metla- 
katla in British Columbia, who had come to Fort Wrangell 
seeking work from the Cassiar miners had brought to the con- 
glomerated tribes their first notion of Christianity; and this 
new cult, crudely taught and imperfectly comprehended as it 
was, had already enlisted some of the head men of the Stickeen 
tribe. Philip McKay, one of Father Duncan’s early converts, 
afterwards belonging to the Wesleyan Mission at Port Simpson 
under Mr. Crosby, had come to Fort Wrangell to find work 
and had begun to preach to the people of his own tribe, many 
of whom had gathered there, like him, to seek employment. 
The natives speaking other languages had become interested 
and asked him to preach to them in Chinook. He had com- 


plied and gathered together a little company of nominal Chris- 


tians. 


Tow-a-att, a sub-chief of the Wolf clan, who knew no Eng- 


88 





THE QUEER PEOPLE 89 


lish and but little Chinook, had become interested in the new 
doctrine, and several of his tribal family were pronounced ad- 
herents of Philip McKay and were called Christians. Among 
these were Matthew Shakates; Jim Coustateen, a half-breed 
who was renamed Moses after his alleged conversion; his 
brother, Aaron Kohnow; Jacob and some’ younger men, such 
as Henry, Lewis and Stickeen Johnny, boys who had lived with 
the whites, talked passable trade English and had even begun 
to learn to read. All of these attended Philip McKay’s services, 
and when Mrs. McFarland arrived in ’77 they clung to her, at- 
tended all her meetings, went to her school and gathered 
around them the better men from other families of the Stick- 
eens. Among these the most prominent and influential Chris- 
tian adherents were Lot Tyeen, Koonk, Thomas Konanisty, 
Andrew, and Jake Johnson. 

But the women, especially those who were living with white 
men, were more intelligent than the men, and even those who 
had never taken the trouble to get married but were faithful 
wives to their white husbands, were constant in their attend- 
ance upon Mrs. McFarland’s meetings and formed a nucleus 
of the future church. Mrs. McFarland’s experience as mis- 
sionary among the Navajo Indians of New Mexico and Nez 
Perces of Idaho stood her in good stead when she arrived at 
Fort Wrangell, and the “ Christian Indians ” looked upon her 
as their spiritual mother, and yielded to her what was under 
the circumstances a very remarkable obedience. 

So I found a band of Stickeens ready to listen with respect 
to what I had to say, and to carry out my plans as fast as I 
made them. But those plans were very misty, and liable to 
frequent changes as I began to learn the ways of the natives. 

I have come to the conclusion that every successful mission- 
ary to heathen peoples must pass through three stages: First, 
he idealizes the savages, takes their part against the whites 
on every occasion, excuses their faults and exaggerates their 


WOO HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


virtues, defends them as actually superior to the ‘‘ squaw-men ”’ 
and other whites who live promiscuously among them. The 
second stage is one of violent reaction; the filth, squalor and 
shocking immorality of the natives disgust him. He grows 
to despise his charges, becomes impatient, and too often set- 
tles into a pessimistic and intolerant attitude towards them. 
Many missionaries have never got beyond this second stage 
and, going back to their homes in Christendom, have given the 
natives, to use a colloquial term, a “ black eye,” decrying every 
effort made to elevate and Christianize them. They adopt the _ 
saying wrongfully attributed to General Sheridan, ‘‘ The only 
good Indian is a dead Indian.” 

Strange to say, the squaw-men, many of whom have adopted 
savage ways and often have become more degraded and filthy 
than the squaws they live with, are the severest critics of the 
natives whose example they have followed. To cite one in- 
stance out of many which I might quote of this overpowering 
disgust on the part of some missionaries: One of these men, 
well educated and of good repute in the East, where he was 
pastor, went to one of our native missions. He had been there 
but a few months when his attention was called to a dying In- 
dian woman, a member of his church. The white man who 
told him about her condition advised him to go to see her at 
once, as she desired and needed spiritual consolation. The 
next morning this white man asked the missionary how the sick 
woman was, only to be answered roughly, ‘I don’t know; I 
am not going into that stinking house.” Such men do not and 
ought-not to last long as missionaries. 

The third stage into which all successful missionaries settle 
is the golden medium. The natives are looked upon as God’s 
children, although naughty, careless and wayward children; 
they are to be pitied, loved, borne with and patiently tended 
as children. Their capabilities are recognized, their native 
talents cultivated and their future gilded by the rays of hope. 





THE QUEER PEOPLE 91 


Instead of meeting them half-way and becoming Indianized, 
such missionaries fraternize with them, and, without standing 
aloof, constantly exert an influence towards higher and better _ 
ideals. I believe that the natives of Southeastern Alaska are 
peculiarly susceptible to the right kind of influence, as their 
wonderful progress during the last fifty years has evidenced. 

But those first days of groping and finding our way—-my 
feelings, as I recall these experiences, are mingled self-pity, 
regret for my mistakes, and amusement at my predicaments. 
The pigeon-English which we had to use in communicating 
with them was very funny. The Chinook jargon itself made 
me laugh every time I heard it spoken. This trade language, 
which was spoken universally as a medium of communication 
between the whites and the natives and between the natives of 
different languages throughout all of British Columbia, Mon- 
tana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, had for its foun- 
dation the language of the Chinook Indians who lived near 
the mouth of the Columbia River. The Hudson’s Bay em- 
ployees had injected French and English terms adapted to In- 
dian vocal chords. It was a childish jargon and, of course, in- 
capable of expressing any real thought. Abstractions or con- 
nected reasoning were impossible to it. 

Although I had to preach in this jargon for ten years, as I 
had five or six different languages represented in my congrega- 
tion, I never lost my impatience with it, or the feeling that I 
could not communicate many Christian ideas to the natives, 
nor could they receive them. The same word stood for verb, 
noun, adjective, adverb, preposition and interjection. To con- 
vey one’s ideas one had to roll and twist the words around, 
reiterating them and striving somehow to embody a meaning. 

Imagine trying to transmit a doctrine of the Christian re- 
ligion through such a medium! I used to be very thankful for 
the Old Testament stories and the parables of Christ; and even 
many of these, simple and sublime though they are, were en- 


92 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


tirely impossible of interpretation to these Alaska natives. 
The life which they had lived was so different from the en- 
vironment of the Jews of Palestine. 

The Thlingit language, spoken by the Stickeens and by all 
the tribes of the Archipelago except the Hydas, was scarcely 
more copious or capable of expressing the ideas of civilization 
than Chinook. The meagerness of their life, pent up as they 
were in this corner of the world, between the mountains and 
the sea, hardly can be imagined by those who have lived the 
free, full life of the nineteenth and twentieth century Cau- 
casian civilization. The Thlingits never had a written lan- 
guage. While the figures on their totem poles and on their 
blankets and baskets expressed certain crude ideas, they could 
not convey messages or thoughts to one another. Their lan- 
guage was copious in names of the objects of the sea, the for- 
ests and the mountains surrounding them, but, like the 
Chinook, was ridiculously inadequate to express any thought. 

Our native interpreters (interrupters, as they well named 
themselves) made many funny mistakes which became known 
to us; and, I have no doubt, countless others of which we re- 
mained ignorant. Mrs. Dickinson, who was a full-blood Ton- 
gass native, was for several of those early years our chief inter- 
preter. Her tribe was the most southern of the Thlingits, liv- 
ing just across Dixon’s Entrance from the Tsimpsheans of 
Port Simpson and Metlakatla. She had early acquired the 
Tsimpshean language as well as her own. She was married to 
a white man, George Dickinson, and they had two children, 
Sarah and Billy. She and her children could read and write, 
spoke English at home, and held themselves rather aloof from 
other natives, speaking of them as “they ” and of the whites 
as “‘ we.” 

Billy was a boy of fifteen years when I arrived at Wrangell, 
and he came to live with me to help in my housekeeping, to 
interpret for the natives who were coming to see me, and to 





THE QUEER PEOPLE 93 


assist me in my efforts to acquire the language. Though his 
mother was my official translator, I put Billy in training for 
prayer-meetings and conferences. But the chapter of the 
Bible used must be gone over always with him beforehand, to 
make sure he would get it right. 

Our whole environment as well as the queer languages was 
so strange, so radically different from all our previous expe- 
riences that we were kept agog with interest and curiosity, 
while waves of pleasure and disgust alternated rapidly. A 
walk through the Stickeen town was both interesting and re- 
volting to our civilized tastes. The houses were all built on 
the beach, which was slimy and filthy with decayed fish, meat 
and offal, carcasses of dead dogs, skeletons of deer and other 
animals and even human bones—those of slaves who had died 
and, of course, had been refused cremation, strewed the pebbly 
beach. There were no sidewalks or beaten paths. Many of 
the community houses were set up on posts, and under them 
came swashing the higher tides at time of full moon. 

Within the stockade where we lived was more cleanliness 
and comfort. But, even here, conditions were such as would 
be considered intolerable to people of the present day. The 
only drinking water we had was rainwater caught in barrels 
and hogsheads. These were found under the eaves of all the 
houses within the Fort and outside of it. Back of the Indian 
town were little streams which supplied the natives; but we 
had to depend upon the rainwater. This ran through the moss 
which covered our roofs, and in the barrels were mosquito- 
wigglers and other unpleasant things. 

It took us some time to catch the meaning of the common 
language of our people. Even the most intelligent of them 
were hard to understand until we got in the way of their 
strange manner of expressing themselves. We could not pene- 
trate the recesses of their minds; we had not learned to “ think 
Thlingit.” 


94 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


The inability of these people to pronunce any consonant 
which brought the lips together added to our difficulty. While 
there were three or four distinct “ K ” sounds, B, P, M, F and 
R were impossible to them. They could not even pronounce 
our names. The nearest they could come to mine was “ Wistle 
Yuy.”) Mrs. McFarland was “ Wis Whahlin.” When Mat- 
thew tried to express his opinion of another Indian whom he 
thought very conceited, he said: “He heart too wuch high 
down.” If we had not been able to see and enjoy the funny 
things which were happening every hour of the day, we would 
have died from disgust. 

From the first, Mr. McKay’s advice not to ‘‘ become an In- 
dian” kept recurring to my mind and prevented me from 
treating really low and debasing incidents in the life with in- 
difference. My fear of becoming used to vile sights and sounds 
and indifferent to them became at times almost an obsession. 
I often felt like my dearest cousin, Lyda McAvoy, whom I 
brought to Wrangell in 1884 to be the teacher of our training 
school. After a walk through the Indian town, during which 
occurred several very shocking and disgusting incidents, I 
found her in her room bitterly weeping. 

“Why Lyda,” I asked, “ what is the matter? ” 

“Oh, Hall,” she cried with a fresh gush of tears, “I can’t 
keep my horror keen enough! ” 





IX 


BEGINNINGS 


early life and efforts in Southeastern Alaska by topics 

rather than chronologically. Uncle Sam had deserted his 
youngest daughter. Apparently, he had given up Alaska as 
“a bad job.” ‘The task of planting Christian civilization in a 
region so entirely lawless was one that ought never to have 
been required of any American. 

The officer of the government stationed at Wrangell was 
Deputy Collector Crittenden, a Kentuckian, the scion of a 
prominent Blue Grass family. While he had many likable 
qualities and the manners of a Southern gentleman, he, as 
Joaquin Miller used to say about himself, made no pretension 
to morality or religion. On his arrival in Alaska he promptly 
accumulated an Indian establishment, including a young 
woman with a more than shady past, and her relatives. This 
he did openly and without shame. And while he extended 
kindness to us, his influence was, of course, entirely opposed 
to our efforts, and his example preached more loudly against 
missionary work than any of his polite assertions could do for 
it. 

The moral conditions at Fort Wrangell and the whole region 
were indescribably bad. When you add to the natural state of 
a savage heathen people, which is always one of degrading sin, 
the evils introduced by lawless whites, you have an appalling 
state of affairs. Not that the Thlingits and Hydas at Fort 
Wrangell were naturally worse than other savages. Indeed, 
I think that they were better naturally than the Indians of the 
plains or the poor natives of Africa and the South Sea Islands. 

95 


| T will be perhaps more interesting to take the order of that 


96 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


They were descendants of the better Oriental races, and had 
Japanese intelligence, imitativeness, aptness in the use of tools 
and susceptibility to civilization. But the soldiers had done 
them little good and much evil. The town was full of half- 
breed children. The most loathsome of diseases was uni- 
versally prevalent. Nearly all of the younger men and women 
had either running sores or scarcely healed cicatrices on their 
necks. There was practically but one topic of conversation 
among the whites and the natives. Many of the poor little 
ones came into the world covered with scales, and most of the 
babies died. The first year in which I was able to record vital 
statistics at Fort Wrangell was 1879, during which year there 
were fifty-five deaths in the town and only eleven births! 

“Hooch ” was made in more than half of the community 
houses. Polygamy, slavery, drunkenness and constant im- 
morality—what a category! And we were alone without 
Christian companionship, or support and protection from the 
government. We had no one to consult with as to our plans 
and movements. 

And yet the situation never appeared to us as hopeless. Sev- 
eral rays of light appeared in the darkness. The brightest of | 
these, perhaps, was the social status of the native women. If 
ever in any heathen country women’s rights prevailed, it was 
in Alaska. The totemic system had much to do with this. 
The strange law, unalterable as those of the Medes and Per- 
sians, prevailed all the way from Mount St. Elias to Victoria. 
The child took the totem, family, name and property of its 
mother. ‘This custom, joined to that which forbade marriage 
within the same totemic group, gave women a dignity and im- 
portance sometimes superior to that of their husbands. This 
was brought home to me in a startling way soon after I reached 
Fort Wrangell. 

A fine looking, grizzly haired, stalwart six-footer, a chief of 
the Kake tribe, his town being sixty miles distant from Wran- 








BEGINNINGS 97 


gell, came into my door, and after him marched eight or ten 
fine looking men. The old chief, after the usual polite prelim- 
inaries, said through my interpreter: 

“ Uh Ankow, uh too uneek ahklin” (My chief, my heart is 
very sick). 

“Why is your heart sick? ” I asked. 

_ He explained that his family was doomed to extinction. “A 
few more years, and there will be no Kiksutti at Kake.” 

“ Why,” I exclaimed, “‘ are not these men members of your 
family, and have they no children? ” 

He looked at me in surprise. ‘‘ Yes, but you know their 
children will not be members of my family, and there are no 
girls in my family.” 

Thus I began to get into my head this strange law. The old 
chief’s lamentations were fit, and there was no consolation that 
I could give him. The children of these men have nothing to 
do with their fathers. Since there were no girls in that fam- 
ily to perpetuate its name and secure its holdings, it was 
doomed to extinction. The male children were no relation to 
their fathers. They were compelled by this law to fight 
against them in favour of some far-off totemic relation, should 
a difficulty arise. The chief’s property, holdings, power and 
influence would all descend to his sister’s children and not to 
his own. There was no help for it. 

A word about this same totemic system: From time im- 
memorial the Thlingits, Hyda, and Tsimpshean races had been 
divided into two grand totemic groups, the Ravens and the 
Wolves. In some of the tribes the Eagle took the place of the 
Wolf as grand totem. The Ravens were subdivided into the 
Frog, the Beaver, the Sea Lion, the Crane, the Owl and other 
phratries; while the Wolf Clan was subdivided into the Eagle, 
Brown Bear, Whale, Porpoise and other families. The grand 
principle was that the Raven could not marry a Raven nor a 
Wolf a Wolf. Such cohabitation was looked upon with the 


98 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


same horror as we would feel at the marriage of brother and 
sister. At the same time a man might take as his wife his own 
aunt on his father’s side, and no harm would be thought of it. 

This universal law came into conflict, of course, with the 
laws of the United States in regard to inheritance—when the 
United States established its laws over that country; but in 
these early days the native law prevailed, and we had to learn 
and respect it. The fact that it made a girl child more de- 
sirable in a family than a boy reconciled us to it in great 
degree. 

The woman had her say in all the family counsels; she kept 
the purse and jealously looked after the interests of her fam- 
ily. She had the disposing of her own sons and daughters in 
marriage, and to her belonged the decision in family disputes. 
While wives were supposed to look after their husbands, the 
marriage bond was not very firm, and in case of any trouble 
between the two families the wife was apt to go to her mother’s 
home, and her husband was powerless to prevent her from do- 
ing so. The women formed the majority of our church mem- 
bership and had more to say in prayer-meetings and on social 
occasions than the men. 

On one occasion a girl who had been in the McFarland 
Home, but had gone back to her parents’ house, came to see 
me, dressed in her ‘‘ Sunday best.” By the length of her po- 
lite preliminary palaver I knew she had something weighty on 
her mind. At last I broke in upon the conversation: 

“Well, Mary, what is it? ” 

With squirming and blushes she began: ‘“‘ Mr. Young, I want 
to get married.” 

“That is well,” I said, ‘‘ but who is the happy man? ” 

“T think it is Sam,” she said. “I asked him yesterday.” 

“Why, Mary,” I exclaimed, pretending to be shocked, “ that 
is not your place; among the white people the men always ask 
the women to marry them—not the women, the men.” 





BEGINNINGS 99 


She replied instantly: ‘I don’t see why I can’t ask that 
question as well as Sam; I know more than he does.” 

In fact, the women more often tyrannized over their hus- 
bands than the reverse. Missionaries have to be jacks-of-all- 
trades when they go to a country like that; carpenters, under- 
takers, teachers, physicians, lawgivers, and among other duties 
they must settle family quarrels. It seems strange in the light 
of what we have heard about the slavery in which the women 
of other Indian tribes are held, but it is true that more native 
men came to us, often with marks of conflict upon their faces, 
complaining of being beaten by their wives, than wives com- 
plaining of abuse by their husbands. Many a time native men 
asked me to compel their wives to give them money which the 
men had earned, to buy tobacco and coffee. And the com- 
plaint was frequent that in addition to providing food for the 
family—fish, meat, and other necessities, the husband had to 
do the housework, and they considered this an unfair division 
of labour. But it worked a benefit in this way—that the girls 
were the more numerous and the brightest scholars in our 
schools, filled the position of interpreter more often than the 
men, and could be better relied upon to perform duties in our 
congregations. 

Another circumstance, greatly in our favour, was the fact 
that in Southeastern Alaska nobody ever goes hungry. It is 
the most prolific country in natural products in all the world. 
There is no severe winter there, and the waters are open during 
the whole year; all kinds of salt water fish can be had at all 
seasons. For “ two-bits”’ (twenty-five cents) you could pro- 
cure enough fish—codfish, salmon, halibut, flounders, rock- 
cod, sea-bass, etc..—to last your family a couple of weeks. 

Then, in Southeastern Alaska, “ when the tide is out the 
table is set ”; all kinds of sea-beach food—clams, mussels, scal- 
lops, crabs, cockles, devil-fish, etc. Fresh-water fish in sum- 
mer, such as salmon, trout and grayling. And the woods are 


100 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


full of game; deer are plentiful and as easy to get as sheep on 
a farm; mountain goats and bears; and up the river, moose, 
caribou and mountain sheep; some game! All kinds of water 
fowl, grouse of four or five varieties, ptarmigan, groundhogs, 
porcupines, etc. And the woods are full of berries. Potatoes, 
cabbage, turnips, peas, etc., will grow with little cultivation. 
The natives do not have to beg for food. 

But the most favourable circumstance about the Thlingits 
and Hydas in those early days was the fact that they were 
naturally religious. They were predisposed to belief in the 
Bible. Being of Semitic origin, many of the Old Testament 
stories had counterparts in their legends. While the grotesque 
and materialistic totemic system, with its interminable stories 
of Yeatl—the Raven, and the other animals in their original 
half-human form, had filled the native mind and tongue in later 
years, yet a deeper study of their religious beliefs made it | 
clear that originally they were monotheists. The older and 
wiser chiefs asserted a faith in one Supreme God, who was a 
Spirit. They used His name in a sort of profanity, when they 
wished to be emphatic and earnest—“ Uh Shagoon!” (My 
First One.) When we preached about the Holy Spirit, they 
said: “‘ We have always believed that.” Curiously enough, this 
Spirit was said to have materialized only on one or two occa- 
sions, and then as a white bird—a dove. 

This Spirit made the world. Yeatl was born of a woman 
and found Kees-shusa-ah-ankow (The Lord of the Tides), and 
other legendary heroes already on the earth, the giants of their 
system. 

All the Thlingit tribes possessed a distinct legend of the 
flood. ‘Their versions differed only in unimportant details. 
They localized the legend, each tribe having a different Mount 
Ararat. The Stickeens pointed to Castle Mountain, near the 
mouth of the Stickeen River, as the scene where their Noah 
hauled up his canoe to the highest peak and escaped. The 





BEGINNINGS 101 


Tacoos designated the high mountain whose snows feed the 
Tacoo Glacier. The Chilcats named the highest peak’éf their 
great range. +, 

But the most striking point in proof of their derivation from 
the same generic stock as the ancient Jews was their ready ac- 
ceptance of the doctrine of blood-atonement. When we 
preached the vicarious sacrifice of Christ for sin they ex- 
claimed, ‘‘ Why, that is just like the death of our So-and- 
so,” naming certain persons who had given their lives for the 
sake of their fellow-tribesmen. 

The unwritten law of the Thlingits demands payment in tke 
for every wrong committed against one of their family. The 
doctrine is the old Jewish one, ‘‘ An eye for an eye and a tooth 
for a tooth” ; but the eye must be of the same colour and the 
tooth of the same size. In other words, if a murder was com- 
mitted, a life of the same dignity and tribal value as that of 
the murdered man must be exacted from the family of his 
slayer. If a chief is killed by a man of low degree belonging 
to another family, the chief of that man’s family must be the 
one to pay the forfeit. Caste was very distinct, and there was 
endless debate concerning the relative prominence of different 
families. 

Shortly before our arrival at Fort Wrangell, a murder had 
been committed by one of Tow-a-att’s family upon the person 
of one of the friends of Shakes, whom Mrs. Dickinson de- 
scribed as “‘ the keadest chief of all the Stickeens.” The two 
families fortified their houses, which were not far apart, the 
men of the Shakes family gathering on the little High-Tide- 
Island on which was the head chief’s house. After much de- 
bating, many orations shouted back and forth, much recital of 
the dignity and wealth of the slain man and many demands for 
life and blankets, the quarrel had become so fierce that there 
was danger of a general war which would involve scores of 
natives and cost many lives. The trouble was ended, however, 


102 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


by the voluntary sacrifice of one of Tow-a-att’s brothers, who 
had had no part whatever in the killing of the murdered man. 

He dressed up in his best Chilcat blanket, put his chieftain’s 
hat on his head, took in his hand an ancient spear, which was 
the emblem of his position as chief, went out in front of his 
stockade, made a speech in which he recalled the trouble and 
named himself as equal in rank to the man who was killed, and 
then gallantly walked out, with extended arms, half-way be- 
tween the two stockades, and there was shot by a volley from 
the family of Shakes. Then there were feasts and mutual 
speeches, and the trouble was settled. 

This was not an isolated case; many similar occurrences 
had taken place in nearly all of the tribes of the Archipelago. 
Sometimes the trouble between two different tribes extended 
over a period of years, with much bloodshed and the death of 
many innocent persons, but it was almost inevitably ended by | 
the voluntary vicarious sacrifice. The natives could not un- 
derstand our code at all. 

A year after our arrival at Wrangell, the father of one of the 
girls in the McFarland Home, who had a hunting place and 
salmon stream some thirty miles from Fort Wrangell, killed 
his wife in a drunken quarrel. He tied the body by the neck 
behind his canoe and towed it to his house in Wrangell, called 
in the six or seven men of his family, fortified his house and 
awaited events. The family of the murdered woman was large 
and proud. They came with most of the head men of the 
tribe and asked my advice as to what was to be done. The 
two families were at war, and shots were being fired back and 
forth from the different houses. My natives asked what was 
the white man’s law in such a case, and requested me to act 
as judge and bring the murderer to justice. When I explained 
that the white man’s law was the life of the murderer for that 
of the one slain, they asked in astonishment: ‘‘ Suppose your 
great Chief at Washington (the President of the United States) 





BEGINNINGS 103 


should kill a little slave boy, would the life of the great Chief 
be forfeited?” When I told them that was the law, they 
could not see any justice in it; and this murderer held the 
same opinion. He explained that their law was a man for 
man, a woman for woman, a slave for a slave and a chief for a 
chief, and further said, ‘It is not right that my life should 
pay forfeit for that of my wife, who was a woman; there is my 
sister; you can take her and kill her, and justice will be satis- 
fied.” 

But the sister naturally objected to that way of settling the 
difficulty, and fled to me in great terror for protection. We 
gave her lodging in one of the rooms within the fort, and she 
did not dare to stir outside its gates for two or three months, 
during which time bullets were flying over the town. 

The natives felt and expressed a good deal of contempt for 
the United States government which would not enforce its laws. 
There was not a court eligible to try any case. If the captain 
of the revenue ship at Sitka had interfered and tried to take the 
murderer by force, there would have been much innocent blood 
shed. 

This case was settled only when the friends of the murdered 
woman, who had been waiting with their guns outside of the 
culprit’s house, killed him as he sallied forth to fight the Hoo- 
chenoo Indians, in January, 1880, when they attacked the 
Stickeens. The murderer said, ‘“‘ Let me not die by the hands 
of my Stickeen friends; let me be killed by our enemies, the 
Hoochenoos,” but the family of the murdered woman could 
not wait, and shot him as he came out of his house to join the 
intertribal conflict. 

The general custom enabled us to command prompt accept- 
ance of the story of our Lord’s sacrifice for the sins of man- 
kind. 

Let sceptics exalt the virtue of liberty, freedom, cleanliness, 
justice and kindness as they will, it remains everlastingly true 


104 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


that no savage tribe or nation can be effectively reformed as to 
their morals, customs and manners without faith in God and 
His Christ. One of the early captains of our little gunboat 
that plied those waters was Captain J. B. Coghlan—the man 
who during the Spanish-American war became noted on ac- 
count of his singing the song about “I und Gott,” to the dis- 
pleasure of the Kaiser. He was a Catholic, if anything, and 
given to very violent and profane language. But during a 
visit to our mission he said with great emphasis: 

“You missionaries will have to do the work of civilizing 
these people and keep order among these islands. The United 
States army and navy can do but little. With your schools 
and churches the missionaries, and they only, can transform 
and civilize these Indians.” 

Therefore, while we learned more and more to emphasize 
the necessity of getting the people out of their old community 
houses into cottages of their own where a Christian home could 
be exemplified, of getting the girls into a mission home where 
they could be protected and trained to be Christian wives and 
mothers, and taking the boys into like homes and teaching 
them useful trades, yet we always recognized the fact that 
religion must come first, and that only faith in the true God 
could transform their lives and make them fit to be recognized 
as Christian citizens. 

We preached the Gospel from the first, and erected churches 
as soon as possible for all the tribes. We started schools, 
teaching only the English language. We had Sunday Schools 
which the older people as well as the children attended. We 
taught them to have family worship, to ask a blessing at the 
table and to conduct themselves as Christian believers. And 
in all this work of transforming the lives and manners of the 
Thlingits and Hydas, Religion has been recognized as the 
prime factor in accomplishing the great task, 





x 


BLUNDERS 


sionary life has advanced considerably during the last 

half-century, but in the ’70s and ’80s about all that 
was considered essential in a missionary was a knowledge of 
the Bible and a consecrated spirit. These are essential, but 
are by no means all that a missionary going into such a 
heathen country should know. We were thrown entirely upon 
our own resources, without any precedent or counsel from ex- 
perienced friends to guide us, therefore many mistakes were 
inevitable. We were groping our way in a maze of trails 
through tangled woods—and often took the wrong path. 
Alaska made a hundred demands upon us for which we were 
ill prepared, and the work suffered while we were acquiring 
the knowledge with which we should have begun. The natives 
who were inclined to Christianity looked upon the missionary 
as a superior being and came to us for counsel and aid in all 
emergencies. 

A few days after I landed, one of my men came with a re- 
quest that I go to see a young Indian who had been hurt by 
the falling of a tree. I went with him to the Indian house, 
and found a boy of sixteen years groaning with a broken leg. 
They asked me to help him. I had never studied surgery and 
knew nothing about such cases. I turned to the white men for 
advice, and two of them volunteered to help me. We hastily 
turned over the pages of a book on surgery which my uncle, a 
doctor, had given me. We whittled splints, tore up sheets and 
fixed up the broken limb. Fortunately, one of the men who 
assisted me was a “‘ squaw-man” and knew something of the 

105 


NOWLEDGE of the preparation necessary for a mis- 


106 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Indian customs. He warned me of this danger: The medicine- 
men would be called in, and the old woman who posed as herb 
doctor, and they would tamper with the bandages and prob- 
ably wish to poke holes into the leg to “ let the bad blood out.” 
So I strictly commanded the father of the boy to forbid any 
Shaman or old woman doctor from entering the house, and 
enjoined them to keep the patient quiet and above all things 
to allow no one to tamper with the bandages. I stationed as 
guards two of my best men, including Matthew, who had an 
appointment from the customs collector as policeman. By our 
care and vigilance we warded off interference in this case, and 
made a pretty good leg of it. 

Not long afterwards, however, a boy of twelve was caught 
under a rolling log and had his thigh broken—a simple frac- 
ture. I set and bandaged the leg. The next morning on visit- 
ing the patient I found him screaming with pain. A crowd of 
excited natives were crowding the room. 

I asked, ‘“‘ What have you done to this leg? ” 

“Nothing,” they replied. 

A glance at the bandages disclosed that they had bee 
tampered with, and after undoing them I found that the splints 
had been removed and that somebody had punched holes in 
the boy’s leg, and the bandages and splints were covered with 
clotted blood. The leg was swollen to twice its natural size 
and was turning blue. My indignant questions brought forth 
the fact that an old woman doctor had come in and had told 
the parents that there was a lot of bad blood there and it must 
be let out. They produced the Indian knife which had been 
used as a lancet. It was a knife point made of a file, which 
was inserted in the end of a stick so that half an inch pro- 
truded. This had been jabbed scores of times into the leg 
and the simple fracture had become a compound one. The 
splints could not be replaced, and the boy was crippled for life. 

From the first the natives kept coming to me for medicine. 





BLUNDERS 107 


Visiting all the houses in the native town, I found one or more 
persons sick in almost every one of them. Consumptives rolled 
ghastly eyes from their filthy cots; little children, emaciated 
and covered with sores, wailed and shivered before our sym- 
pathetic eyes. The demand for “ kof nemichen ” was univer- 
sal. The stores had plenty of patent medicines, mostly com- 
pounded with bad whiskey or rum, and those which had the 
most alcohol in them were in greatest demand. The first time 
I took a pint bottle of cough syrup to a sick woman I learned 
a lesson. Going back in the afternoon to see the patient, I 
found the bottle empty. As I had given instruction that the 
woman was to have but three teaspoonfuls a day, I investi- 
gated, and found that a number of her cronies had been 
treated to the “ nemichen,” and the woman herself had taken 
so much of it that she was simply drunk. Outside of a few 
barks that acted as cathartics or astringents, they had no 
knowledge of the medicinal value of plants or minerals. 

The thirst for intoxicating liquors was so great that the 
stores were soon depleted of “ Florida water,” flavouring ex- 
tracts and patent medicines. Wood alcohol used in machinery 
by the steamboat men would be stolen and swallowed instantly 
if the natives could get at it. 

I was called to see a sick woman one day, and found her 
writhing in convulsions of agony. I asked her what she had 
been drinking. She denied having taken anything. My eyes 
rested on an empty pint bottle labeled “‘ Jamaica Ginger.” 

“How much of this did you take? ” I asked. 

“ Just a little,” she groaned. 

Upon inquiry I found that the bottle had been procured that 
morning. The woman had swallowed a pint of raw jamaica 
ginger! I could do nothing for her; she died in a few hours. 
You could not trust the word or judgment of any of those 
natives. In such cases they were a set of irresponsible and 
stubborn children, 


108 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Another instance among many occurs to me. A year after 
my arrival at Fort Wrangell came a Mr. Corleis, an inde- 
pendent Baptist missionary, with his wife and child. They 
were excellent, devoted people, full of missionary zeal, and 
came at their own expense to do Christian work. Mr. Corleis 
had taken a year in Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, 
and so we called him “ Dr. Corleis,” and I joyfully handed 
over all my cases to his care. Besides doing a little new Chris- 
tian work among the “ Foreign Indians ” up the beach, he took 
charge of the sick throughout the town. There were many 
loathsome cases of venereal diseases—a class of maladies I | 
would not touch. 

A young woman named Mary Anshawah, who often suffered 
agony, used to come to Dr. Corleis for ‘sleep medicine.” He 
would administer a dose of morphine, and she would sleep off 
the paroxysm of pain. One day she came to him for a dose of 
this sleep medicine. It was early in the afternoon, and he put 
up a dose of morphine in a paper and told her to take it just 
before going to bed that night. Instead of going home, Mary 
went to the house of a friend of hers, one of our Christian 
natives who lived with an Irishman, named Flannery, and had 
three children by him—the youngest being a baby eight or 
nine months old. The baby was fretful and crying from a 
cold. Mary said to her friend, Mrs. Flannery: 

“Dr. Corleis gave me some sleep medicine. I feel better 
now; let us give it to the baby.” 

So those two fools gave the adult dose to the infant. The 
next morning I was called hastily to the Flannery house just in 
time to see the baby die! The incident caused much excite- 
ment, but no amount of argument would convince Mary that 
the sleep medicine would not have had the same effect on her 
had she taken it. 

Dr. Corleis remained at Fort Wrangell less than two years. 
Both before and after he was there I used to call upon the | 








BLUNDERS 109 


surgeons of the gunboats during their infrequent visits and 
take them the rounds of my Indian patients and have them 
prescribe for them and leave medicines. On one occasion the 
surgeon with me visited a hundred and fifty patients, and then 
stopped, exhausted, before he had made the complete round 
of my cases. I was constantly studying and consulting friends 
in the East and getting cases of medicine sent to me, but I 
always felt a sense of helplessness and exasperation, and 
knew that I was making hundreds of mistakes. 

I found that two qualities were requisite to any medicine in 
order that the natives should have any faith in it: First, the 
medicine must be nasty, and, second, it must be dark. Any 
colourless or tasteless medicine they refused to take—it was 
halo skukum (not strong). Coal-tar and bitter aloes must be 
added to the remedies in order to induce faith, and acceptance. 

I am firmly of the opinion that no man should be sent to a 
savage country like that, where there are no qualified physi- 
cians, without first taking at least a partial course in medicine, 
surgery and dentistry. To my grave will I carry the convic- 
tion, causing me to shrink as from a hot iron when I think of 
it, that scores of those poor natives died because of my igno- 
rance, and once I came within an ace of losing my wife, only 
because I did not know how to take care of her in childbirth. 

One of the greatest blunders we made in those times, the 
disastrous effects of which are experienced to this day, was 
this: We gave the natives too many presents: This was to 
some degree inevitable. The Thlingits and Hydas had learned 
through the whites that the Indians in other parts of the 
United States had treaties with the government, had Indian 
agents and in many cases government annuities. Naturally 
they wished the same. The white men were taking their lands 
and salmon streams and game, and giving them nothing in re- 

turn. They were always asking the missionaries to take up 
_ their case and bring them assistance from the great Chief at 


110 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Washington. All savages are more than willing to be beggars. 
The Alaskans did not realize that the condition they com- 
plained of was one of their very best assets. By the treaty 
with Russia at the time of the purchase they were American 
citizens, with presumably the same rights as the white people. 
The early missionaries to British Columbia gave them lessons 
in cupidity. 

Father Duncan, who received from the English Church, it is 
estimated, some two million dollars in money and supplies, 
quite freely distributed gifts to his people at Port Simpson and 
Old Metlakatla, before he learned the art of leading them to- 
wards self-support. The Wesleyan missionaries who succeeded 
him at Port Simpson pursued the same policy of distributing 
gifts. At Fort Wrangell and Sitka we received from good 
friends in the East boxes of clothing for the boys and girls in 
our training schools and all kinds of toys and gifts for our 
people. Naturally, the natives thought of these as their right 
and as their reward for embracing Christianity. Gratitude is 
a quality left out of the composition of a savage, in spite of 
the wonderful instances of loyalty and grateful appreciation in 
the early stories about the “ noble red men.” ; 

While it was necessary that some gifts should be given to 
the natives, as we were dependent upon these boxes for the 
clothing of the children under our care and the equipment of 
our missions, I am satisfied that we did too much of it. Of 
course, not being an educated doctor, I could not and would 
not charge for the medicines I distributed. The natives had 
no idea that they were under obligation to pay for these things. 
Indeed, they looked upon their acceptance of Christianity as a 
distinct favour conferred upon uws/ Many a time when urging 
an old savage to come to church he would ask: ‘“ How much 
you pay me? ” 

When we took the Indian girls into the McFarland Home 
to protect and educate them, the parents felt no obligation to 





BLUNDERS Tig 


provide food or clothing for this institution, but rather expected 
gifts for themselves. They were used to peddling their daugh- 
ters to white men for immoral purposes and for pay. Why 
should not missionaries pay them for girls in their homes? 

While Father Duncan soon awoke to the harm of indis- 
criminate giving, and began training his people in self-support, 
those of us who had not the advantages he possessed were left 
to be the victims of these early mistakes. Father Duncan was 
made magistrate of a vast region, larger than all of New Eng- 
land and New York. He had gunboats at his command from 
Esquimault Harbour at Victoria; he could send his armed In- 
dian police in their canoes and arrest any trader who was 
peddling whiskey, and sentence the offenders to ten years in 
the chain-gang at Victoria. He was absolute monarch of this 
vast region; he could make his own laws, such as the one for- 
bidding white men to camp within four miles of Metlakatla, 
and could enforce those laws. His position made him an auto- 
crat, and when a bishop was sent from England to be his lord 
and to take supreme charge of his mission it speedily led to 
disagreements, lawsuits, and the departure of Father Duncan 
with most of his people to American shores and the establish- 
ment of New Metlakatla on Annette Island in Alaska. 

The harm done by these acts of foolish generosity cannot be 
overestimated. It. is still very difficult, indeed, to work our 
native missions up to any degree of self-support. Many of 
the natives still hold the same attitude as one of my men: I 
found him very ill and helpless, suffering from a form of 
rheumatism. I cared for him for more than a year; gave him 
a room in one of our houses within the fort, and my wife and 
I tended him and nursed him as if he were a brother. We 
expended upon him more than a hundred dollars in medicine, 
food and clothing. After he had recovered in some degree and 
was able to return to his home and do some work, I found him 
standing by his small canoe on the beach one day and I said: 


112 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


‘“‘ Charlie, I wish you would take me in your canoe over to 
Shustaak’s Point,” half a mile distant. 

He looked at me for a moment and then said: “‘ How much 
you goin’ to pay me? ” 

‘Have you no shame?” I asked. ‘‘ Have you forgotten all 
that I have done and spent for you the past year? ” 

He eyed me with a look that made me want to knock him 
over. ‘ That’s your business,” he said in Thlingit. “ My 
canoe is my business.” 

While I do not in the least blame those splendid friends 
who have stood by us to help us and who are still showering 
gifts upon the children of our missions, it is becoming more and 
more evident that giving presents has been overdone, and that 
the native people have not learned, as they should, our Lord’s 
saying: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The 
Thlingit, Hyda and Tsimpshean churches of Alaska should be 
constantly pressed and urged until they attain the goal reached 
on so many foreign mission fields—the full support of their 
own native pastors. 

The mistake of rating the intelligence of the natives too 
highly must be mentioned. While in matters pertaining to 
their physical wants—preparing native foods, navigating those 
intricate channels, learning the movements of the tides and 
weather signs, hunting, fishing, berry picking and the thousand 
and one incidents of their daily life—they showed surprising 
aptitude and wisdom, yet in all that touched on their new life 
as Christians they were “ infants crying in the night, and with 
no language but a cry.” The children in our schools learned 
by rote with surprising facility, and could repeat long chapters 
in the Bible with an exactness that astonished visitors, but 
without understanding a word of what they were saying. The 
Testaments we gave to the older ones were often used as 
charms, and we would find them tied to sticks which were 
stuck in the ground by the bedside of the sick. 





XI 


THE GATHERING CLOUD 


The unexpected was always happening. Plans for 

to-morrow’s work could not be carried out because | 
to-morrow would be so different from to-day. Those July and 
August days were both interesting and perplexing in their 
variety. Mrs. McFarland’s letters had given me some inkling 
of what to expect, but my ideas were very misty and in the 
main incorrect. 

One delegation after another of natives called to see the new 
minister. Their ideas about me and what I could do for them 
were about as erroneous as mine concerning them. But it very 
soon became plain that a long and terrible battle was before 
us, the issue of which was doubtful. Of course, I had done 
some reading and studying along the line of witchcraft and 
the Shamans, or Indian medicine-men. These remote things 
had now become a part of our daily experience. Although the 
impurity and disgusting scenes that abounded on every side 
were appalling, we soon found that the real fight was to be 
with the superstitions and false beliefs of the natives which 
were back of the sin of impurity, and must be overcome and 
at least partly eradicated before real progress could be made. 

Mrs. McFarland in those first days told me much about the 
scenes through which she had passed. Not more than a month 
before my arrival an outburst of witchcraft superstition had 
plunged her into deep trouble. As always, the medicine-men 
were the causes of the persecutions that followed. Suddenly 
word was brought to Mrs. McFarland that some of her pro- 
fessedly Christian women had been seized, tied up and were 

113 


() UR work at Fort Wrangell never fell into routine. 


114 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


being tortured as witches. Charley Brown, a merchant at 
Wrangell, had a store in which molasses, groceries, calico, 
blankets and other articles were bartered to the natives for 
their furs. Charley was also a miner and was absent for the 
summer in the Cassiar, looking after his interests there. His 
Indian wife, who had borne him two children, was a tall, 
strongly built woman of influence. She had been among the 
first to embrace Christianity. Somebody ‘“ dreamed” that 
she was a witch. Kohlteen, a sub-chief of her family, which 
was of the Kiksutti (the Frog Family), came with other men 
of his clan, seized Mrs. Brown and tied her up. ; 
The manner of binding a witch was very cruel. The victim 
was first stripped of her clothing, her hands tied together behind 
her back with a thong of deer sinew, then the hard rope was 
passed around her ankles and her feet drawn up to her hands 
and tied so tightly that the thin sinew tendons cut into the flesh. 
Then the victim’s braid of hair, if a woman, was pulled down 
and bound to the hands and ankles so that feet, head and 
hands were made to meet behind the back; a horrible posture 
of constant agony. The victim was then thrust into a dark 
hole under the upper platform of the Indian house, and left 
to roll helplessly on the hard ground. 
She would be visited at intervals by the medicine-men who 
accused her, and by her enemies whose “ dreams ” had brought 
about her accusation, and she would be whipped with “ devil’s- 
club” (a thorny cactus-like shrub), which left its poisonous 
barbed needles in the flesh at every stroke. She would be 
given no food at all, but compelled to drink large quantities 
of salt water to increase her thirst; and if obdurate in her re- 
fusal to confess herself a witch and throw away her “ bad medi- 
cine,” other more strenuous tortures, such as sticking the flesh 
full of fat spruce splinters and setting them on fire, dragging the 
victim sideways across sharp stones of the beach to lacerate her 
naked body, and other devices too foul and revolting to record 





THE GATHERING CLOUD 115 


would be restorted to. All of these operations were superin- 
tended by the Shaman or Iht. The family of the man or 
woman whom she was supposed to be bewitching would gather 
in full force, helping with the torments and taunting the victim 
with jibes and obscene mirth, exhorting her to “ confess ” and 
throw away her “ bad medicine.” 

Needless to say, the victim generally confessed; and in order 
to save the poor remnant of her life she implicated some one 
else as her accomplice in witchcraft, and the same tortures 
were repeated upon another victim. Thus the wave of super- 
stition rose higher and higher, and swept far and wide to other 
families and other tribes. Following Mrs. Brown’s seizure as 
a witch, four other women were accused and captured, all of 
them having been attendants upon Mrs. McFarland’s meet- 
ings. One of these was found dead, hanging by the neck to a 
log under the floor of the house where the witches were kept. 
Whether the woman was put to death by her accusers, or in 
her agony and despair had committed suicide, was never ascer- 
tained. Four or five other victims were named and seized, two 
of them being old men of low caste, and the others children of 
tender age. Mrs. McFarland’s tears and entreaties were of no 
avail. While her people professed unbelief in witchcraft, they 
were helpless to put a stop to such scenes of torture, and the 
great majority of the natives were excited and angry, and no 
one knew who would be the next victim. 

As soon as Charley Brown returned he promptly cut loose 
his squaw wife and the other women who were tied with her, 
and thrust his pistol down Kohlteen’s throat, threatening to 
“blow his head off,” and thus scared the witch-hunters into 
temporary cessation of their persecutions. 

An old medicine-man who had been a leader in this out- 
rageous torture took to his canoe and fled to distant parts, but 
there were from thirty to forty accused persons, or those who 
expected to be named as witches, hiding among the islands and 


116 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


up the rivers afraid to come to the town for fear that they 
would be seized and meet a like fate. 

We estimated that during this wave of superstition which 
swept over the Archipelago that summer of 1878, at least a 
hundred victims had lost their lives, while two or three times 
that many had been cruelly tortured. 

A few days after I returned to Wrangell from Sitka, word 
was brought me that there was trouble in the Stickeen town. I 
hurried down to the village and found an excited crowd around 
two struggling figures. To my astonishment and dismay the 
two men who were grappling with one another were no other 
than our Christian chief Tow-a-att and Richard, another of 
Philip McKay’s “converts.” The old chief was shaking his 
smaller antagonist and shouting questions of anger at him. 

With great difficulty I succeeded in disengaging the grip of 
the two angry men and in leading them into Matthew’s house, 
where I called in my interpreter, Mrs. Dickinson, and probed 
for the cause of the fight. I found that Richard had had a 
dream in which he saw Tow-a-att making “ medicine” over 
the carcass of a dead beaver at a lonely place in the woods. 
Richard had rashly told his dream, which was equivalent to an 
accusation, and Tow-a-att had promptly taken up the gage 
and attacked his slanderer. After a long powwow I succeeded 
in pacifying the good old chief and obtaining Richard’s denial 
that he had ever accused Tow-a-att of witchcraft or had had 
such a dream; and the fire was covered with ashes and the 
threatening conflagration averted. But it was still smoulder- 
ing and liable to break out in a new place any time. The peril 
was always hovering over us like a pall of smoke. 

Christian work went on in spite of the discordant voices of 
the large village. Every Sunday morning one of our boys went 
through the village ringing a hand-bell. His trip involved a 
walk of nearly two miles and took almost an hour’s time. Lit- 
tle flocks of Indian children began to come from different 





THE GATHERING CLOUD 117 


points along the winding beach, shooed along by their mothers 
as if they were flocks of ducks and geese. Our adherents 
marshalled these companies and brought them up into the Fort, 
and they were driven into the log barracks which had been 
used as quarters for the soldiers. Scared little Indians they 
were, dressed in blankets and blanket clothes, the richer ones 
in blue and green, and the poorer ones in dirty white. Many 
of them had blackened faces, smeared with a mixture of seal 
grease, spruce gum and lampblack. The children of the chiefs 
were distinguished by streaks of red and yellow painted across 
their black faces. If they came from Christian families their 
faces were washed—not clean but in streaks and spots. At 
first they would not sit on the benches of various heights that 
we had provided for them. They did not understand the use 
to which the benches and chairs were put, but squatted down 
on the floor after the Indian fashion. To mould a crowd of 
little savages like that into the semblance of a Sunday School 
was an interesting but very difficult task. Water basins, 
towels, scrubbing brushes and soap were provided, and the 
more advanced women, who were living with white men, helped 
to wash the little folks, until their mothers were taught and 
shamed into scrubbing them before they started from their 
homes. 

The men and women of the Stickeen village generally at- 


tended the meetings, but it was a long time before we could 


influence the natives in the “ Foreign Town” up the beach to 
come. The day school followed the Sunday School, and the 
people, young and old, came to it—not regularly but more 
from curiosity than from a desire to learn. Of course, some 
of the younger men and women who had learned to talk a 
little English tried to learn to read, and a few of them suc- 
ceeded in a fashion. One curious phase of our work was that 
those who had been accused directly or indirectly of witchcraft 
came diligently to school every day. They would hold a book 


118 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


in their hands, ofttimes upside down, thinking that thus they 
would get some charm against persecution, or at least placate 
their teacher, from whom they hoped for defense against 
threatening trouble. 

At the prayer-meetings held Sunday and Wednesday even- 
ings those who had resolved to take the side of Christianity 
would make their confessions, and there would be prayers and 
speeches, all in their native tongue. The missionaries would 
sit by their interpreters, and the speeches would be translated. 
We would talk, always on practical subjects, for they had not 
progressed far enough to understand the doctrines of Chris- 
tianity, with the exception of the simple teaching that sin was 
displeasing to God; that He had sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to 
pay the debt of mankind and atone for sin, and that repent- 
ance, obedience and faith were necessary in order to secure 
salvation. It was the patient “line upon line, precept upon 
precept, here a little and there a little” ; but our activities 
were echoed by those of our adversaries, for we had active 
foes from the very first. 

Some of the merchants were our friends, others were open 
enemies. One Jew storekeeper, during the witchcraft trouble 
before my arrival, told the natives that he also believed in 
witchcraft; that it was only a few years since the white man 
in the “ Boston man’s” Christian country had tortured and 
executed witches for doing the same things that their witches 
were accused of doing. Of course, the Jew said this in order 
to obtain the custom of the natives. As most of the natives 
were away from the village at work for the miners, putting up 
dried salmon at their various streams, gathering berries and 
otherwise preparing for cold weather, there was no serious out- 
break for several weeks after our arrival; then the storm 
gathered black, with gleams of fitful lightning. 

Late one evening Billy Dickinson went to answer a rap at 
my door. Instead of inviting the callers in, he rushed to the 


THE GATHERING CLOUD 119 


kitchen where I was working, his face blanched with fear. 
“The witches, the witches! ” he exclaimed. I went to the 
door, and found a pair of little old wrinkled Indians, evidently 
man and wife, who began waving their hands up and down, 
palms upward, in beggar fashion and uttering doleful cries and 
sobs. 

Billy said, ‘“‘ You better not have them into your house; they 
are the worst witches of all the people anywhere.” 

I brought in the old couple, shut the door and offered them 
chairs. They sank on the floor, still talking and praying to 
me. I made Billy answer my questions, and found that the 
old man’s name was Kah-tu-yeatley, and that he had been hid- 
ing among the islands all summer, until they heard that a white 
man had come who would take pity on them and protect them 
from those who were trying to catch and torture them. I sent 
Billy post-haste for his mother, who came with evident shrink- 
ing and fear. 

“These are the head witches of all! ” she cried. ‘‘ Every- 
where the people have been trying to find Kah-tu-yeatley; he 
is a bad man and is always working his ‘ bad medicine’ ; you 
better not have anything to do with them.” 

“Mrs. Dickinson,” I said sternly, ‘‘ I want you to sit down 
right here and tell me all about these poor people, what they 
are accused of, and why they are in such distress.” 

After much questioning I found that Klee-a-keet, the most 
famous Jht or Shaman in all the Archipelago, had accused this 
man and woman of being witches. They were low-caste 
Stickeens of Tow-a-att’s family. They were accused of be- 
witching the aunt of Shakes, the head-chief. She was the wife 
of Shustaak, the hard old heathen chief whose imposing house 
crowned the rocky point just across the mouth of the harbour 
from the Fort. This was the famous house at the erection of 
which, some five or six years before our arrival, ten slaves had 
been sacrificed at one ceremony. 


120 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


The poor old couple were crazed with terror. They kept 
making gestures of supplication, and whining, “ Nuskodaya 
hut anuska, uh ankow” (Have pity on us, my chief). The 
woman even got down on her hands and knees and knocked 
her forehead against the floor, praying to me as to a god. I 
made Mrs. Dickinson calm their fears, seat them on chairs and 
stop their crying. I gathered from their incoherent talk that 
they had come secretly to Wrangell upon hearing of my ar- 
rival, and were afraid to go to their house, or let it be known 
that they were here. I had to decide upon the instant what 
to do with them. I took them to an empty room within the 
deserted barracks, locked them in and sent my frightened in- 
terpreter to the house of Jacob Ukotsees, the nearest relative 
of the named “ witches,” and after nightfall this man, himself 
almost paralyzed with fear, came bringing blankets and food 
and other necessities. 

There for three or four weeks lived this old couple, con- 
demned by universal sentiment as the most despicable crim- 
inals known to the Thlingits. They stirred out of their room 
only to go to the mission school, which convened in an adjacent 
house, and to our church and prayer-meetings. It was both 
ludicrous and pitiable to see the wrinkled old savages, who 
did not know a word of English and never could learn, sitting 
among the children, holding primers upside down in their 
gnarled hands, vacantly staring at the teacher or dozing on 
their bench. 

At that season most of the natives were absent from the 
town at their salmon streams or hunting grounds. But there 
was excitement, anger and fear among those who remained. 
Many of those who had begun to call themselves Christians 
and to attend the meetings withdrew and denounced me. A 
number of parents took their children out of school and Sun- 
day School. Violent speeches were shouted into the air after 
the Indian fashion from prominent houses: ‘‘ The missionaries 


- 


THE GATHERING CLOUD 121 


are taking the part of those who are murdering us by their 
black arts.” 

While my little rank of adherents remained steadfast they 
were perplexed and troubled. The whole town awaited the 
return of Head-Chief Shakes from his salmon stream up the 
Stickeen River, and dire were the forebodings as to what would 
happen. 

While awaiting the crisis, I took every opportunity to study 
the natives, and especially the Zits, and their ways of “ mak- 
ing medicine.” Soon word was brought that Klee-a-keet had 
come to the “ Foreign Town” and was about to make a “ big 
medicine.” He was a Hoochenoo, and camped with his tribe 
near the north point of the island, half a mile up the beach. 
He had been called from his home at Angoon, a hundred miles 
from Wrangell, to cure a Tacoo chief, whose large native house 
stood not far from the Stickeen town. Here was my chance 
to witness a first-class incantation. I kept myself informed of 
all details of the ‘‘ big medicine,” and was a fascinated spec- 
tator when the night of the performance arrived. 

The Tacoo chief was a man of great wealth, as the natives 
considered riches. He traded with the Taltan Indians, whose 
habitat was in the interior, between the headwaters of Liard 
River and the streams that flowed into the Pacific. He reached 
these natives by paddling his canoe up the Tacoo River and 
traveling with his slaves and packers to the towns of the “ Stick 
Siwashes,”’ as they were called, ‘‘ People who lived in forests.” 
He traded with these natives for furs, charging what he pleased 
for the blankets and other goods which he had purchased at 
Victoria and Wrangell from the white traders. He had built 
his house large, about fifty feet square, with two platforms 
running around the whole interior. He was slowly dying of 
tuberculosis. Klee-a-keet had sent him word that he was able 
to cure him. The chief had made great preparations for the 
performance. He had sent to all his clansmen collecting blan- 


122 ‘HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


kets, Indian boxes, beads, guns and ammunition for the occa- 
sion. These were hung over the bed on which the sick chief 
lay, or displayed around him on the two platforms. There 
were some three hundred blankets, besides the other articles— 
at least two thousand dollars’ worth of goods made a fee to 
be offered in return for the “ Big Medicine” that was to cure 
the sick chief. 

That night all the people of the Foreign Town and many of 
the Stickeens were gathered together in the great house where 
the sick chief lay. In the middle of the room blazed a big fire 
of dry yellow cedar logs. On this, every now and then, the 
Thlingits would throw ladlefuls of seal grease, making the 
flames flare up to the smoke-hole in the roof. 

On the first platform back of the fire, on a bed of red blan- 
kets, lay the chief. He was gasping for breath, and in his de- 
lirium muttering strange words and sometimes shrieking with 
pain. By his side were his wife and children and other mem- 
bers of his family. 

Every inch of room in the house, except a space by the fire 
reserved for the medicine-man, was crowded with eager In- 
dians, their faces tense with excitement and fear. Long they 
waited, their terror growing every minute. 

At last, far away, was heard the sound of Indian drums: 
“ Dumdum, dumdum, dumdum,” the rhythmic beat broke the 
silence. Louder and louder it grew, nearer and nearer, while 
the crowd inside the house held their breath in suspense. Now 
the weird minor strains of the medicine song blended with the 
drumming—a solemn, mournful measure. Suddenly broke in 
upon the singing the long tremulous wail of a wolf, and in- 
stantly every dog in the village responded with a discordant 
chorus of howls. 

Now the door swung open, and four young men fantastically 
garbed, with faces painted in rings and streaks of black, white, 
red and yellow, holding their flat drums by their handles be- 


A ee | ee aS Pe ee ee ee 


fe 
"whe 


either 


THE GATHERING CLOUD 123 


fore them, drumming and singing, keeping time by the jerking 
and posturing of their bodies, marched in. After them came 
eight men with wooden masks on their heads, carrying two long 
carved wooden boxes and in their hands round sticks, with 
which they beat upon the boxes, in time with the songs. 

The twelve young men ranged themselves around the fire, 
and at a signal squatted down on the floor, still singing and 
beating time. They took the carved lids off the boxes, dis- 
playing the rattles, aprons, masks and charms which the great 
medicine-man would use in his incantations. They placed the 
hollow lids before them, beating rapid tattoos upon them with 
their sticks. The songs grew more frenzied, their time more 
rapid. Dumdumdum, dumdumdum, dumdumdum, went the 
drums; rattattattat, the sticks. Every eye was turned to- 
wards the door. 

The wild, maniac cry of the loon quivered through the air; 
all gave exclamations of wonder and fear, as into the room 
rushed Klee-a-keet with frantic gestures and horrid cries. He 
leaped over the heads of those on the lower platform and 
landed on the cleared space by the fire. Close after him rushed 
two of his slaves. Their business was to keep their master out 
of the fire and prevent him from hurting himself. 

Klee-a-keet had made himself as hideous as it is possible for 
a human being to be. He was naked, except for a short apron 
of buckskin, hung with small clinking shells, and anklets of 
swansdown, ornamented with puffins’ bills. His body, legs, 
arms and face were painted all over with totemic figures and 
grotesque devices. Green figures of his family totem, the frog, 
covered his chest and abdomen. Goggling eyes in black, white, 
and ochre stared from his arms and legs. His face was a 
jumble of red, blue and yellow rings and streaks. His hair, 
which never had been cut or combed in his life, surrounded his 
head in ugly bunches like a mass of brown seaweed. In each 
hand he held a rattle, with carved frogs chasing each other 


124 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


over its surface; these he rattled furiously as he howled and 
danced. 

This dreadful figure was never still. It crouched and 
sprang; it writhed and bent and swayed; it pitched towards 
the fire, only to be thrown back by the slaves; it dashed itself 
on the floor, rolling over and over, tying itself in knots and 
convolutions like a bundle of snakes; it turned somersaults 
and cramped backward until heels touched head; it rolled its 
eyes, clutched with its claws, frothed at the mouth and steamed 
with sweat. It lost all semblance to a human being and seemed 
a demon from another world. 

From the mouth of this terrific monster burst forth in rapid 
explosions noises as varied and frightful as its contortions. It 
howled like a wolf, roared and growled like a bear, screamed 
like an eagle, squalled like a lynx, blew like a whale, hissed 
like a serpent. Prayers to the demons of the mountains and 
the sea and to his Yakes, and curses upon his enemies, includ- 
ing the missionaries and the witches, followed each other cease- 
lessly. 

The ordinary Shaman had only one Yake, or familiar spirit. 
Klee-a-keet boasted of six, and in his incantations invoked each 
in succession, calling it by name, and selecting different rattles 
and aprons and amulets to please each spirit. 

This tremendous exhibition continued for two hours, the 
drumming, rattling, and singing growing more rapid and furi- 
ous, and changing with the different Yakes. The crowd was 
fascinated, and breathless as birds charmed by snakes. At 
last, completely exhausted, the Jkt fell heavily to the floor, 
stiffened in every muscle, his eyes rolled upward until only the 
whites could be seen. This was his trance when his soul was in 
the spirit world communing with his Yakes and the spirits of 
other great Jkts. For nearly two hours he lay as if dead, and 
the Indians watched and waited, hardly daring to move or 
whisper. 





THE GATHERING CLOUD 125 


The awakening of the medicine-man was as startling as his 
incantations. Without warning he bounded to his feet; then 
he crouched and swayed, moving his head from side to side, 
and talking rapidly in short, explosive sentences: 

“T have been in the spirit world. I have talked with my 
ancestors. My medicine is strong. My Yakes are omniscient. 
They tell me everything. I know all secrets. I can speak all 
languages. Nothing is hidden from me. I could make your 
chief well in a minute. But a bad spirit is here. He is in this 
room. The chief is nooksatty (bewitched). Somebody has a 
heehwh (evil spirit). He is killing our brother. I must find 
him; I must find him! ” 

Then he sprang into the air and rushed to this and that part 
of the room, the Indians swaying back from him in horror and 
fear. Suddenly he made a spring like that of a panther into 
the midst of the crowd and stooping quickly snatched at an 
invisible rope; then, straining back with all his strength, while 
the sweat poured from his face, he made the motions of gather- 
ing in the rope. Yelping like a dog on a hot trail, he pulled 
on the unseen line, staring ahead and weaving in and out of 
the terror-stricken company, growing more excited, his lips 
drawn back from his teeth, snarling like a dog fighting for a 
bone. His winding course brought him at last to a little group 
of poorly clad Tacoos who stood huddled together, their eyes 
staring, their bodies shivering. They were poor slaves, and 
knew that from their number the Jkt would choose his victim. 

The Skaman was labouring harder, his breath coming in 
gasps, as he pulled at his imaginary rope. When he got in 
front of this group he stopped with a backward surge, and 
stiffened, staring rigid and motionless as a setter pointing a 
bird. Then with a shriek he leaped upon an old slave, seizing 
him with both hands and shaking him. 

“Tt is he; it is he! ” screamed the Shaman, and fell upon the 
floor in convulsions. 


126 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


There was a moment of tense silence. The crowd was dazed 
and stunned. Then confused cries of horror, fear and anger 
burst forth on every side. Excited voices cried: “ The witch! 
The witch! Take him! Tie him up! Kill him! ” 

The friends of the sick chief, led by his brother, came storm- 
ing up and laid violent hands upon the slave, jerking him hither 
and thither. One of them struck him in the face. A Tacoo 
woman called him a foul name and spit upon him. They flung 
him on the floor. They tore all his clothes from him. Two 
men took him by his feet and dragged him across the sharp 
gravel which surrounded the fire, tearing the flesh of his back 
and staining the stones with his blood. Men and women 
sprang to the fire as he passed, and snatching burning brands 
stuck the live coals against his body. The horrible smell of 
scorching flesh filled the room. Then the attendants of the 
Iht brought thongs of sinew, and he was bound as Mrs. Brown 
had been, the rope in this case being passed around the man’s 
throat and drawn so tight behind his back that he could 
breathe only with great difficulty. Some one pried up two 
planks from the upper platform and the victim was thrown 
to the ground eight feet below, and the planks replaced. 

While this frightful scene was being enacted I was by no 
means a passive spectator. During the incantation I was spell- 
bound. But when they seized the slave and began to abuse 
him I became beside myself with horror and anger. I shouted 
protests and struggled to go to his help. But I was held as in 
a vise. When I became sane enough to look at my captors I 
found that some of my own men, Matthew, Moses and An- 
drew, were holding me, lest I be injured in the crazy mob. 

“ Better go home,” said they. “ You can’t do nothin’. Some 
udder time you speak.” 

I obeyed perforce. I did not sleep that night, but my re- 
solve was that of Abraham Lincoln’s concerning slavery: 
“When the time comes, I’ll hit that thing—and hit it hard!” 





fe Te 
> = 


XII 


THE STORM 


[se close study of Shamanism made while Kah-tu- 


yeatley and his wife cowered in my house was not 

the only pressing activity and excitement occupying 
those days. The slavery question became acute. There were 
many slaves in and about Fort Wrangell, some of them held 
by the Stickeen chiefs and others brought there by the ‘“ For- 
eign Indians.” ‘These slaves were obtained in two ways by the 
Thlingits and the Hydas. The manner in which most of them 
were procured was by the great war parties, which, from thirty 
to a hundred years before our arrival, went down the coast in 
their large canoes, attacked the Flatheads of Puget Sound and 
the natives of Vancouver Island, killing the men and making 
captives of the women and children. The slaves thus procured 
and their children, for they frequently married in captivity, 
were held as property in all the tribes. 

The other method was by self-surrender. A man would be- 
come so deeply involved in debt that neither he nor his imme- 
diate kin could see any prospect of payment. His creditors 
were persistent in their demands. At last, after much talk he 
would give himself up, with as many children of his family as 
were necessary to satisfy the long-standing obligation, and they 
would go to the house of the creditor family and become slaves. 

However, while those obtained by foray were counted as 
mere chattels, the master having the power of life and death 
over them, those taken for debt within the same tribe stood on 
a different footing; and there was always the hope in their 
hearts that they could serve out their time and purchase their 
freedom. ‘They were part of the family in the community 

127 


128 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


house, and often their masters had a real affection for them 
and treated them well. 

But the slaves captured from foreign tribes were despised, 
slighted and bartered at the will of their masters. Frequently 
they were sacrificed at the death of a chief, or to propitiate the 
spirits of the glaciers which were swallowing up their salmon 
streams, or the spirits of the mountains which precipitated 
landslides upon the camps, or the spirits of the ice which over- 
turned huge icebergs to the destruction of unwary canoeists. 
When they died, instead of their bodies being cremated they 
were thrown out in the woods to rot or be devoured by the 
wolfish dogs. 

So far as I could ascertain, no real effort had been made by 
the officers at Fort Wrangell and Sitka to abolish slavery. Of 
course, I instituted a vigorous campaign against this evil. 
Here I had the help of Colonel Crittenden, the customs col- 
lector. In his pompous way he said: 

‘We Southerners had to give up our niggers after the Civil 
War, and I am not going to stand for slavery among these 
Siwashes.”’ 

Although the masters objected, and often pretended to lib- 
erate their slaves while still holding them in servitude, we soon 
effected practical freedom. We sent back to Nanaimo in 
British Columbia, to Tacoma and Port Townsend and to the 
west coast of Vancouver Island upward of twenty men and 
women who wished to return to their native tribes. This, of 
course, involved much investigation and many powwows. 

I was a very busy man those days. In addition to my mani- 
fold duties among the natives I had to be chief nurse to my 
one confidential friend among the white men of Fort Wrangell, 
John Vanderbilt. He was a bright young man whose home 
was in New York City, but who had come to Portland, Oregon, 
and had been sent to Fort Wrangell by the merchants of that 
city to act as receiver to close up the mercantile business of 





THE STORM 129 


William King Lear, an old trader who had taken over the gov- 
ernment commissary supplies when the Fort was abandoned. 

Vanderbilt and his wife were refined and companionable 
people, and their two children were our delight. But John was 
taken violently ill with inflammatory rheumatism, and I had to 
act as his nurse. As did the other white men, John counseled 
me to keep my hands off all troubles between Indian families 
and between the different tribes living there; to ignore witch- 
craft disputes, and above all things not to interfere with the 
medicine-men. They said it would be at the risk of my life 
to have anything to do with such cases. They all looked upon 
the Thlingits and Hydas as inferior beings—liars and thieves— 
with only animal instincts and incapable of any real civiliza- 
tion. 

Some six weeks passed from the time of my arrival when it 
was announced that Chief Shakes had returned, and the native 
village was agog with excitement. 

Kah-tu-yeatley and his wife still tottered daily to our school 
and were the most devout of our attendants at prayer-meet- 
ings. I had been over to Shustaak’s Point frequently to see 
the old chief and his wife, as they lay in their blankets on the 
platform of the big house in front of the log fire, coughing, 
groaning and spitting blood from the tuberculosis which was 
slowly eating away their lives. The hard old chief would have 
nothing to do with the Christians, and only tolerated my visits 
because of the hope he had that I would give him something. 
The medicines I sent him were never taken as I directed, and 
I learned that he distributed them freely to his friends. He 
was incurably wedded to the old fashions. 

One night the expected blow fell. It was very dark and 
stormy that prayer-meeting evening. Kah-tu-yeatley was 
caught as he was crossing the campus on his way home; his 
cries and those of his wife were stifled, and he was hustled 
aboard a canoe and was paddled over to Shustaak’s house. His 


130 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


old wife was released after some rough treatment. Very soon 
Mrs. Dickinson, Matthew and Aaron came rushing into my 
house with the news. 

I had been making up my mind just what to do in such an 
emergency. I said to Mrs. Dickinson: ‘“‘ You must go home 
now and get your sleep, and to-morrow morning, right after 
breakfast, I wish you to get me a canoe, and you and I will go 
over to Shustaak’s and get Kah-tu-yeatley.” 

Tremblingly, she answered: “‘ Oh, you can’t do that! They 
won’t let you; they very mad, maybe they kill you. I am 
afraid.” 

“Mrs. Dickinson,” I said, “I don’t ask for your opinion. 
You will come to me to-morrow morning and go with me and 
interpret for me. If you refuse, I will discharge you and get 
another interpreter.” 

The next morning she was there, in Matthew’s canoe. Be- 
cause of the enmity between Shustaak’s and Shakes’ families 
and that of Tow-a-att, I forbade any of my Christian Indians 
to go with me. 


“ This is my affair,” I said, ‘and I am going to fight it out ~ 


alone.” 

The moment my little canoe struck the water, a dozen craft 
of various sizes were shoved into the sea and all headed to- 
wards the Point. From Shakes’ Island, Casch’s Cove, Kadi- 
shan’s Point, Konanisty’s house and other places the head 
men of the village, with the exception of Tow-a-att, all con- 
vened in Shustaak’s house. When I entered I found about a 
hundred and fifty Indians. They all scowled at me in silence. 
Shustaak, dressed in his best blue blanket, and his wife in her 
finest garb, lay groaning near the fire surrounded by their 
slaves and attendants. Shakes, with some twenty strong young 
men of his family, sat on the platform near Shustaak’s bed. I 
went in and began my speech. It was short but right to the 
point. I said: 











’ “eit 





rh AN: 


7 
- * 4 
SO een 





ALASKAN 
MEDICINE-MAN 


AN 





TOTEM POLES AND COMMUNAL 


HOUSES 





THE STORM 131 


“T have come to get Kah-tu-yeatley; to free him and take 
him back to my house. You have broken the law of the United 
States, and I shall have you all punished. I am going to put 
down all persecution for witchcraft and banish the medicine- 
men from this town. This is going to be a Christian town, 
and the law of love shall take the place of the law of hatred 
and wrong. Where is Kah-tu-yeatley? ” 

My speech was a bomb, and an explosion followed imme- 
diately. Men and women began to talk rapidly; there was a 
tremendous hubbub. Mrs. Dickinson, who had translated my 
speech only after her protest and my stern command, cowered 
at my side. Instead of answering me, they were all talking 
excitedly to one another. Old Casch, a chief who must have 
been at least seventy years old, went to Shakes and shook him 
by the shoulders. ‘“ You are our chief,” he shouted. ‘‘ Why 
do you let this white man interfere with you? Put him out of 
Shustaak’s house! Take your place as our chief.” 

Others struck the same attitude. Kadishan, who was always 
a diplomat, got the floor after a while and made a somewhat 
soothing speech, taking no ground against witchcraft, but tell- 
ing them not to do anything rash to me; that I had come to 
that town to do their people much good and that they must 
listen to me. 

When there was no answer to my question, I took the floor 
again: ‘“‘ Where is Kah-tu-yeatley? I have come to get him.” 

Then the formal answers began, and every chief must have 
his say. Shustaak, reclining in his blankets, made the first 
speech. There was not much diplomacy to him. He was blunt 
and to the point: ‘‘ Your business is to tell about your ‘ God,’ ” 
he said; ‘‘ our business is to manage our own affairs. My wife, 
who is Shakes’ mother, is very sick. This bad man is bewitch- 
ing her. We are going to make him throw away his bad medi- 
cine, and then she will get well. That is all.” 

Others followed, naming the old man as a murderer, a con- 


132 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


fessed wizard, citing instance after instance of his evil deeds 
and those of others who were accused of the same crime. “ We 
are not going to kill him,” they said. ‘ We are just going to 
make him throw away his bad medicine and save the life of 
Shustaak and his wife.” 

I saw that I was making no progress by argument and that 
they were incapable of reason. It was a huge game of bluff 
on both sides, and I determined to carry it through. Suddenly, 
I stood up close to Shustaak and demanded: 

“ Where is Kah-tu-yeatley? ” 

Shakes answered: “ He is not here.” 

I knew that he was lying and said so. “I am determined to 
see him,” I cried. ‘‘ Where is he? ” 

All sat silent and sullen. I spied a room on the upper plat- 
form of the large house. I stepped quickly to this room and 
tried the door. It was locked. I said: “ He is in this room, 
open it.” 

“No, no,” the chorus cried, “ he is not there.” 

“‘ Where is he, then? ” I shouted. Again, silence. 

I jumped to the fire, and snatched an ax that was lying there, 
and ran back to the room and wielded it. “ Open this door, or 
I will break it open! ” I said. 

There was great commotion. Shakes’ young men sur- 
rounded me threateningly; one tried to take the ax from me 
but I drew it back and threatened him. 

The natives shouted: ‘‘ Turn him out of the house! ” 

Then Shakes stood up and spoke: “ Do not break in that 
door. He is not there. I will show you where he is.” 

He gave orders to one of his young men, who took a Rus- 
sian bayonet in his hand, stepped to the highest platform, pried 
up two slabs of red cedar and motioned down. I ran to the 
place, which was on the opposite side of the room from us, 
and peered down the dark hole. About six or seven feet below 
me lay the poor old man, naked; his head, hands and feet 





THE STORM 133 


cinched tightly behind his back. He could barely move his 
head, but when he saw me he began praying to me as to a god, 
asking me to have pity on him. 

I demanded that he be immediately untied and brought up 
to me. Again there was silence. I took out my knife, and 
swung down until I stood by Kah-tu-yeatley’s side. ‘‘ This is 
a good rope, and if you want to save it, untie this man—or I 
will cut it all to pieces,” I shouted. 

Again there was a hubbub, but Shakes motioned to his young 
men, and two of them jumped down by my side and soon the 
rope was untied. I clambered back upon the platform and 
asked for Kah-tu-yeatley’s clothing. Nobody answered, but I 
did not wait a minute. I ran to Shustaak’s bed and snatched 
a costly blanket, and took it back to where the old man sat. 

“ Put this on him,” I commanded. 

There was a ccry of horror. To put Shustaak’s blanket on 
the wizard—that would condemn it! It would be another bad 
medicine. 

Again Shakes’ voice arose, and Kah-tu-yeatley’s own clothes 
and blanket were brought in and put on him. [I led the old 
man to the fire; he was shivering violently from cold and fear. 
“Now, you are coming to my canoe,” I said, “ and we will go 
back to my house.” 

The natives tried very hard to stop me. “ Let him stay with 
us a day or two,” they asked. ‘“ We will not hurt him. We 
will just talk to him.” 

“No,” I replied, “ he is coming with me.” And I led him 
down and put him into the canoe and paddled back to the 
Fort. The commotion in the town may be imagined! My 
men thronged to my house excitedly, telling what the people 
were saying and the threats that were freely made against me. 
I counseled Tow-a-att and his friends to stay quietly in their 
homes and to have nothing to say. 

I said: “ This excitement will perhaps die down. If it does 


134 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


not I do not wish you to be involved and to have the enmity 
of Shakes and Shustaak. I am going to fight this thing clear 
through. It is God’s will, and He will help us. Stay in your 
homes and pray. I am here to work not only for your families 
but for all of these people. We wish to Christianize the whole 
tribe, and other tribes as well.” 

Mrs. McFarland and I went to Kah-tu-yeatley’s room and 
massaged the sores of his wrists, ankles and neck, and put 
soothing ointment on them. We fed him and tried to quiet 
his fears, but he was still in an agony of terror; and that night, 
doubtless aided by Jacob Ukotsees, he and his wife got in a 
canoe and departed for the country of the Hanegas on the 
west coast of the islands—the kinfolk of Kah-tu-yeatley’s wife. 

I went about my business, but there was a marked change in 
the general sentiment, and one after another, Kadishan, 
Konanisty, Kohlteen and many others who had held aloof be- 
gan to.attend our services. Several Indian women brought 
their girls to Mrs. McFarland, asking that she take care of 
them and “ teach them to be good.” 

Klee-a-keet had departed to the land of the Hoochenoos with 
the loot collected from the Tacoo chief, and there was com- 
parative peace in the town. But I knew that the victory was 
by no means completed, and soon there would be a fresh dis- 
turbance. 

At the time the universal practice concerning their dead was 
to cremate the bodies. All men and women of prominence 
who died were burned with great ceremony. At first I did not 
look with much disfavour upon this practice. I had attended 
a funeral in the East when the body of a friend of mine, at his 
request, was cremated in a Le Moyn furnace. Of course there 
was nothing revolting in that ceremony. 

But the gruesome sight of a Thlingit burning brought a 
change in my feelings. This took place in the “ Foreign 
Town.” The deceased woman was the daughter of a chief of 





THE STORM 135 


the Raven phratry. I arrived just after the funeral pile of 
logs had been erected and the naked body of the woman laid 
upon it. The Indian women were all wailing in their peculiar 
doleful minor singsongs, and a large crowd of natives sur- 
rounded the pile of logs. At a given word the family of the 
deceased surrounded the bier, and one of them applied the 
torch. The logs were of dry yellow cedar, and quantities of 
pitch wood had been distributed among them and gallons of 
seal grease poured over the body and pile of wood. 

The flames sprang up quickly, and black smoke flooded the 
whole scene. Then the mourners began to circle around the 
funeral pyre, and the songs grew louder and faster and the 
movements more rapid. It resolved itself into a frantic dance; 
the natives screeching and crying and invoking the spirit of 
the dead in loud tones. Then they began to snatch-burning 
embers from the fire and as they circled around would thrust 
these fagots into the flesh of the corpse; then long splinters 
of spruce pitch were thrust into the flesh, and these soon were 
on fire until great flames enwrapped the body; the fierce heat 
from under it roasted and charred the flesh. It was a most 
revolting sight, and it continued for over an hour before the 
body was reduced to ashes. 

That cremation settled the matter for me! I took a stand 
- against this horrid heathen ceremony and persuaded the people 
to adopt Christian burial. This result, however, was not ac- 
complished without opposition. 


XIII 


VICTORY 


\ ,' Y ITH the release of Kah-tu-yeatley, the tide of public 
sentiment began to flow somewhat in the direction 
of Christianity and the cause for which our mission 
was established. Our own little company of adherents openly 
exulted. In twos and threes Tow-a-att’s whole family and the 
leading men of the other families came, telling me that they 
had given up belief in the “ old fashions ” and would stand by 
me in all future conflicts. Even some of Shustaak’s, Shakes’ 
and Kasch’s families came regularly to church and sent their 
children to our school. Our meetings were better attended, 
and Mrs. McFarland’s efforts to protect the young girls of the 
town began to meet with some success. But still the old super- 
stitions persisted and could not be shaken off in a few weeks or 
months. 

Delegations from distant tribes came to me asking for Chris- 
tian teachers for their people. This, I now believe, was not 
because they were inclined towards Christianity and the giving 
up of their old customs, but because they thought I was a rep- 
resentative of a power greater than any of their chiefs or 
medicine-men, and they wished to be on the good side of the 
American government and of those who would rule them. 
They were in much fear of the gunboats, and the object lesson 
of the blowing up of the Kake village was sufficiently recent 
to keep them in dread of similar visitations by the Wan-o-wah. 
But various medicine-men still went through their perform- 
ances in the Foreign Town; old women doctors sat on the beds 
of the sick like vampire bats, their claw-like fingers pressed 

136 





VICTORY 137 


tightly on the part of the body of the patient which was feeling 
the most pain. 

Old women with clams, crabs, or baskets to sell came ped- 
dling their wares. The cry of one old squaw, who was very fat 
and dirty, with a very high, doleful voice, rings in my ears to 
this day: “ Claoos nayoo day” (buy clams). Men and women 
and often married couples came with their disputes for me to 
settle. I was pestered with demands that I should help collect 
debts in question between the natives, and disputes about 
“ gits ” (bits—dimes) were increasingly frequent and took up 
so much of my time that I finally refused to arbitrate on trifling 
matters. 

They looked upon me as a judge with all the authority of 
that vague entity which we called “ The Law.” ‘Their disputes 
were often mere quarrels of naughty and ill-tempered children, 
but we had to hear their cases patiently, trying always to sub- 
stitute the law of love for that of selfishness. 

Ever underneath the surface of our little world we could 
hear the rumbling of the volcano of superstition. 

One morning Mrs. Dickinson with Matthew, Moses and 
Aaron came in great excitement to my house before I was up. 
A human skull with the flesh half gone had been found under 
the house of Jacob Ukotsees, the friend of Kah-tu-yeatley. 
Jacob and his family were among those who had been hiding 
on the islands, fearing attack for witchcraft, but had returned 
to their homes when they heard of my arrival. The Stickeens 
were gathered in a mass in front of Jacob’s house, angry 
speeches were being made by this and that heathen, and threats 
of violence were freely uttered. The theory of the heathen 
natives was that Jacob had brought this skull from the dead- 
house of some medicine-man and was making bad medicine 
with it to revenge himself upon his enemies. 

While my friends were discussing the matter in my house, 
there came a message from Chief Shakes and Shustaak to me, 


138 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


asking: “‘ What are you going to do about this fresh outrage? 
Are you going to let Ukotsees make us sick and kill us, as 
Kah-tu-yeatley did? ” 

I saw that a new crisis had come and that open conflict could 
not be averted any longer. After consultation with Mrs. Mc- 
Farland and much earnest thought and prayer, I sent word to 
Shakes, saying: 

‘“‘T am glad that you have referred this matter to me. Call 
a council of the head men of the Stickeen tribe in your house, 
and we will hear what they have to say and will settle this 
matter once for all.” 

Ah, that council! It wearies me to think of it. Four days 
and nights, almost without eating or sleeping, we fought over 
the question. There sat young Chief Shakes in his Chilcat 
blanket with his tenahk (copper shield engraved with strange 
characters), the emblem of his headship, by his side and other 
heirlooms arranged around him; there was old Shustaak, 
wrapped in his blanket, reclining on a bed near Shakes; Old 
Kasch with his unsmiling wrinkled face; Kohlteen, known as 
the violent-tempered head of the Kiksutti, or Frog people; 
Kadishan, the courtier, the custodian of the ceremonial songs 
and rites of the tribe; Sam Tahtain, the orator, and many 
others of position and dignity. The Tow-a-att family were 
conspicuous by their absence. They were the accused, and the 
case against them was to be tried out. Tow-a-att was not 
wanting in courage and would have been present had I advised 
it, although he had received no message from Shakes asking 
him to come. Some seventy-five or a hundred Stickeens, most 
of them dressed in their best blankets, were arranged around 
the room. A big fire of yellow cedar logs was blazing and 
crackling in the center. 

I took the initiative, and in my speech told the people that 
we were met to decide the question as to whether the Stickeens 
were to remain a heathen tribe holding to the old-fashioned be- 





iat ae ear ee 
Cn a Se Pe ee a ee, 


VICTORY 139 


liefs, having their medicine-men persecute those accused of 
witchcraft, making their big potlatches and holding their great 
dances and feasts as they had been used to doing, or whether 
they were to take the new way as believers in God and follow- 
ers of Jesus Christ; as citizens of the United States to which 
they now belonged. 

“We have come from afar,” I told them, “ to bring to you 
the good word from God and from His Son, Jesus Christ, who 
came from Heaven into this world to save you, as well as the 
white people, from your evil ways. We wish to be your broth- 
ers and sisters and to help you to stand on the same footing 
as the better whites. We wish you to love and assist the poor 
and feeble and distressed, not to torture and kill them. Our 
country is a great and free one, and its laws consider life 
and property of all equally sacred. I am here to listen to your 
case. I wish to know what is in the mind of every one of you. 
The question is whether you are to follow your old fashions, be- 
lieve in your medicine-men and do as they say, or follow the 
new way—the way of the Christian people and of the American 
government.” 

Then the speeches began. I did not bring Mrs. Dickinson 
with me to this council, but employed Stickeen Johnny, a young 
man who had lived with the whites; he could speak fairly good 
English and was a member of the Shakes family. Johnny was 
friendly to the whites. I think he felt genuine gratitude to- 
wards the good woman who had taken him when a little boy, 
had educated him and brought him up in Christian ways. 
Johnny had lapsed when he went back to his own people; had 
fallen into some of their vices, and the loathsome cicatrice 
scarred his neck. But he was honest and brave, and was not 
afraid to translate every word I spoke, no matter what he 
thought of its wisdom. 

Shakes, as the first spokesman, began with his usual diplo- 
matic palaver, thanking me for coming so far to see and help 


140 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


his poor people and telling me what a great man I was, how 
wise and good—the usual soft soap applied with lavish hand 
by natives who wished to gain something from those they were 
addressing. 

“We are only little children,” he said. ‘‘ We know very lit- 
tle, and you know many things. You must lead us. But,” he 
said, ‘‘ there are some things you do not know; you have not 
lived among us long, and you are ignorant of the bad people 
who are trying to harm us. We know them, and so do our 
medicine-men. You do not know the bad spirits that are 
flying through the air, who come to our houses and put evil 
thoughts in the minds of those who will listen to them. Some 
of these evil spirits are in this house listening to what you say 
and studying how they can fool you and make you believe they 
are right. I want my people to tell you what they know about 
the evil ones who are nooksatty (possessed of devils). We ask 
you to help put them down—not to take their side.” 

The testimony of practically all present was then heard. Of 
late years I have made a study of the Salem witchcraft cases 
and have compared the testimony given in the press by our 
enlightened New England forefathers with the testimony of the 
Stickeens in that notable council of ours. A comparison of this 
evidence shows a surprising resemblance between tales told 
during the trials at Salem and the stories of the Stickeens in 
Shakes’ house two hundred and fifty years afterwards. But 
space will not permit a tabulation of testimony given at the 
Massachusetts trials from the years 1648 to 1706 and the 
speeches of our Thlingits in Shakes’ house. Yet there were 
in both the same positive statements of the transformation of 
the persons accused into the form of wolves, ravens and 
demons; the same mysterious convulsions, trances and painful 
seizures of their victims; the same jumble of piety and malice, 
of falsehood and delusion; the same hysterics. While the tales 
told by the Stickeens were more crude, they were not more 





VICTORY 141 


fantastic than those of Salem, which made Cotton Mather, the 
most eminent divine of his time, condemn the witches. 

One by one stories of incidents which were told as coming 
under the personal knowledge of the speakers were related with 
seeming truthfulness. Hour after hour slipped by as the end- 
less palaver went on. The mass of testimony, if it could be 
dignified by that name, was overwhelming. But while these 
men claimed to be eye-witnesses of these mysterious events, the 
“‘ witnesses did not agree together ”’; and while I was learning 
much of their fantastic superstitions, it was also becoming 
more settled in my mind that the unscrupulous and avaricious 
medicine-men were at the bottom of it all. Many of these 
tales were put into the mouths of the witnesses by their Jhts. 

At first I tried to answer with arguments the speeches made 
by each one of the chiefs, but after two or three days I found 
that I was making little progress by my arguments, and at the 
beginning of the fourth day I had made up my mind to press 
the matter to conclusion. I sailed on a new tack. I said: 

“For three days now I have listened to your stories, and I 
am glad to know of your old beliefs; but they are the super- 
stitions of children, not grown men. The whites used to hold 
to these old tales, and would persecute those who were accused 
of witchcraft; but that is all a thing of the past now. The laws 
of the United States forbid the persecution of any one on ac- 
count of his beliefs. We know there is no such a thing as a 
Yake or malignant spirit working magic for the destruction of 
man. Our doctors know the cause of consumption and all the 
other diseases that have been making you sick. Our medicines 
can cure many of these diseases, but the Indian medicine-men 
cannot cure anybody; they only work more harm to you. 

“The one question before you now is whether you are going 
to be on the side of law and order, of the United States or 
against it? Are you going to have the friendship of the cap- 
tains of the war vessels and of the government of the United 


142 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


States, or are you going to be enemies of these great men? 
Pretty soon we will have organized government, courts, magis- 
trates, judges and marshals to enforce the laws, to punish 
crimes and to keep order. Your medicine-men and all those 
who persecute people for witchcraft are law-breakers and will 
be punished for the wrongs they commit. It is for you to say 
now which side you are on—whether on the side of the govern- 
ment and law of the United States to which you belong, or on 
the side of murder and superstition and error and savagery. 

“The time has come now for you to stop talking, and decide. 
I shall do all in my power to have those punished who break 
the law, and will protect and help those who are on the side 
of good order. Above all, I am bound that persecution for 
witchcraft shall cease, and that the medicine-men shall not 
practice their black arts in Fort Wrangell. There shall be no 
more tying up or torturing of these poor people. If you con- 
sent, I shall organize you into a Council, with Chief Shakes as 
your president. If there is any witchcraft talk or trouble, we 
will meet together as a Council, and we will try the cases. If 
any one is accused of practicing bad arts and trying to scare 
people or make them sick, we will try their case, and we will 
see that those who are guilty shall be punished. What do you 
say? Decide now. Are you going forward to learn Christian 
ways and bring your tribes up to the light, or are you going to 
sit in darkness? ” 

Profound silence followed for many minutes. Shakes sat 
with his head bowed pondering the question. Then arose Ka- 
dishan, the most influential and wisest of the chiefs, and in a 
speech that was really admirable for its diplomacy and com- 
mon sense he agreed to the fact that their ways and their old 
teachings and customs had brought them only trouble and war 
and dissension. He pointed out the superiority of the white 
men, their weapons, their great steamboats and their manu- 
factures, and said: | 





VICTORY 143 


“Mr. Young has told us what is for our good. I, for one, 
am going to be on the side of Mr. Young.” 

He arose from his seat and walked over and took his stand 
by my side. “I here give up my old fashions, and declare for 
the new way. I am going to learn about God and about all 
good ways. Here I stand, by Mr. Young.” 

A scene, gratifying beyond my expectations, then followed. 
Konanesty made a speech of surrender; then Sam Tahtain and 
others followed, vying with each other in their expressions of 
acquiescence. Only old Shustaak lay on his bed glum and 
silent, scowling at the others. Shakes was the last speaker. 

“You have beaten me,” he said, addressing himself to me. 
“You are wiser than I; I am going to be your friend and the 
friend of the mission hereafter.” 

He then solemnly stalked to the door of his little room on 
the upper platform of his house, opened it and took from it a 
spear, curiously carved, a mask of his totem, the cinnamon 
bear, and a very elaborately carved wooden pipe. He brought 
them to me and made a speech telling what they stood for— 
the old heirlooms of the Shakes family. Then he gave them 
to me, saying: 

“These gifts are the sign that henceforth I am going to be 
a Christian and shall follow the new way.” 

I had prepared a simple document, forming the Council of 
the Stickeens, stating the principles for which they were to 
stand. In it was a pledge that there would be no more perse- 
cutions for witchcraft; that the medicine-men would not be per- 
mitted to practice within the bounds of the town; and that any 
accusations made against any one were to be formally pre- 
sented to the Council and the case tried and judgment pro- 
nounced; that the old feasts and potlatches which led to so 
much robbery and disorder were to be done away and that the 
decisions of the Council were to be supreme in the Stickeen 
tribe. I was to be the manager of the Council, and the cases 


144 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


were to be first brought to me, and I would prepare them for 
action. 

This document was read carefully and interpreted by Stick- 
een Johnny before it was presented for signature. Shakes’ 
name was the first. I wrote his name, and he made his mark; 
then followed Kadishan and all the rest of the tribe, numbering 
about sixty. It was agreed that Tow-a-att, Matthew, Moses, 
Andrew and Lot and one or two others professing Christianity 
might add their names to this number. 

Then there was a general handshaking and the presentation 
to me of a multitude of old dance implements, pipes, stone axes 
and other relics of their past life, and the Council adjourned 
with prayer and benediction. 

Naturally I felt that this was a victory, although I knew 
that the struggle against superstition was only begun and that 
most of the professions of these men were hollow and insincere 
and soon would be forgotten. But it was a victory, neverthe- 
less. And the word went far and near, and those who were hid- 
ing among the islands in fear came back and reoccupied their 
houses. The church and school were filled, and “ new fash- 
ioned ”’ feasts were held in which a ludicrous and rather pa- 
thetic effort was made to ape white men’s ways. Instead of the 
native dances, children’s games were instituted, and for a 
while my house was besieged by those who came professing 
conversion and the desire to be enrolled as our friends. 





AIV 


SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 


seventeenth century, has said that the facts of witch- 

craft have been more definitely proven in the English 
courts than almost any other question. In the most enlight- 
ened nations, belief in it is by no means eradicated. The 
United States is more free from trouble on account of super- 
stition than any other country. And yet, occasionally, here 
and there trouble arises on account of this dark belief—not 
only among the black men of the South with their voodoo rites, 
the Mexicans and Louisiana Creoles with their charms, and the 
various native tribes with their incantations, but among the 
mountain whites, descendants of the Scotch-Irish, the back 
countries of New England and the foreign population in the 
Middle Eastern states. 

How, then, could we expect the natives of Alaska to give up 
in a few months or years that which nineteen centuries of 
Christianity have not been able to overcome? 

Rather than follow the course of events and progress in our 
mission, let me pursue this subject for one more chapter: 

One of the great difficulties lay in the moral make-up of the 
natives, who had never learned to distinguish between truth 
and falsehood, or to feel that falsehood was a sin. If you 
should call a native a liar, he would grin at you and take it 
as a compliment, but if you called him a wizard, he wanted 
to kill you. We soon learned that professions of reform and 
change of heart must be taken with a large pinch of salt. 

I could have baptized the whole tribe of Stickeens the first 
year at Fort Wrangell. Many wonderful stories of the whole- 

145 


S IR MATTHEW HALE, the great English jurist of the 


146 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


sale conversions to Christianity of savage tribes are about as 
reasonable as such action on our part would have been. We 
adopted the plan of putting our members on probation for 
longer and longer periods before receiving them as Christian 
members. They must prove by consistent obedience that they 
were genuinely changed. 

The Indian medicine-men were still very much in evidence. 
They practiced their black arts in the Foreign Town at will. 
And we heard frequently of the Stickeens patronizing them. 
The scope of their activities was very wide, and many curious 
cases came under our observation. I firmly believe that all of 
the medicine-men in Southeastern Alaska at that time and since 
were conscious frauds. They were in the business simply for 
the profit that there was in it. They did not believe in their 
own powers. In fact, one of the most noted of them, when I 
pinned him down, confessed as much. I said, ‘ You know 
yourself that you are simply fooling these people; you have no 
Yake, and never had one. You cannot do anything you profess 
to do. Why do you do it? ” 

He grinned at me with that aggravating insolence that those 
fellows possessed in superlative degree, and said: “I do it for 
the same reason that you come and preach about your God— 
for pay.” 

The conflict between myself and Klee-a-keet soon came to a 
crisis. About six months after our Council was organized, a 
serious trouble arose. The brother of Chief Shakes, a young 
man of twenty-one or two years, was taken seriously ill. He 
had the common loathsome disease with which so many of the 
young men and women were afflicted. I had been caring for 
him assiduously, taking him medicine and directing his nurs- 
ing. In such cases, however, I always refused to wield the 
surgeon’s knife because of the danger of getting the infection 
myself. | 

Klee-a-keet came to the town and heard of the young man’s 





SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 147 


illness. He sent word to Shakes stating he could cure his 
brother if enough pay was offered. 

Instead of reporting the matter to me and allowing me to 
call the Council together, Shakes secretly negotiated with 
Klee-a-keet. My Christian Indians were kept in ignorance of 
what was going on. In his solicitude for his brother and fear 
of the great medicine-man, Shakes forgot all his pledges and 
protestations. I did not learn of this until shortly before the 
incantation was to take place. My first intimation of it was 
the passing in front of my house of two large war canoes full 
of natives. They were keeping time with their paddles and all 
singing wild minor songs. On the front platform of one of the 
canoes the medicine-man, in fantastic garb and painted face 
with rattles in his hands, was going through his medicine 
dance. I learned from my Indians that Klee-a-keet and his peo- 
ple would be feasted by Shakes and the incantation would take 
place that night. I told my men to keep quiet until the time 
arrived and then instructed Matthew to be at Shakes’ house 
and to block the door open with his own body at the time 
when I was ready to enter. Then I got Charley Jones, a white 
man of my acquaintance, who was not a church member, but 
was not afraid of anything, to go with me. 

“You will see some fun,” I said. ‘‘ If you will come with me 
and back me up, I will break up their party.” 

I waited until it was pitch dark and the sounds of the tom- 
toms and the songs proclaimed that the performance had be- 
gun. Then with Jones I slipped down to the Stickeen village. 
The beach was deserted; everybody was at the “big medi- 
cine.” Jones and I stole around the house and suddenly ap- 
peared at Shakes’ door. Matthew was watching for us and 
motioned to us to keep out of sight. Then he knocked at the 
door; it was opened slightly, and the sentry whom Shakes had 
posted there to keep all the white men out asked who was 
there. Matthew answered and started to go in, and then 


148 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


blocked the door open, and Jones and I stepped into the 
room. 

The house was crowded—even my Christian natives were 
there as spectators. The sick man lay on the first platform in 
front of the fire, gasping for breath. On the lower floor Klee-a- 
keet, stripped, only excepting his medicine apron of buckskin, 
was dancing his medicine dance, howling, shrieking and work- 
ing himself into a frenzy. But he was by no means beside him- 
self, for when I entered and walked down the steps to the fire 
he stopped his performance; his young men ceased beating 
their drums and singing. Shakes was evidently flabbergasted 
and pretended to be angry. 

‘“Why you come into my house and disturb us? ” he pro- 
tested. “I did not ask you to come.” 

I walked up and laid my hand on the medicine-man’s shoul- 
der and motioned him to sit down. Mechanically he obeyed. . 
Then I said to Shakes in a loud voice: 

“Why have you lied to me—you whom I made president of 
the Council; you who signed your name promising that there 
would be no more medicine-men performances in the Stickeen 
town? You have broken your word. Now I demand that this 
man be turned out, with all his people.” 

Instantly there was a commotion. Klee-a-keet said he would 
not go. Shakes came to me pleading to let the performance 
go on. 

“No,” I said. “ You have promised obedience to me and to 
the church, and you know that no heathen doctor can help 
your brother. He is lying there unconscious. This noise will 
only hasten his death. This performance has got to stop right 
now.” 

The medicine-man refused to stir when I ordered him out of 
the house. I gave the word to Jones, and he took the drums 
and drumsticks out of the hands of the young men and gath- 
ered up the paraphernalia, which consisted of many aprons, 





SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 149 


masks, rattles, and different articles which were supposed to 
attract the many Yakes which Klee-a-keet possessed. Then we 
put them into a box and carried them out of the room back to 
my own house. There was a great hubbub, but no one ven- 
tured to lay hands on us. 

The next morning I went early to see Shakes’ brother and 
found him still unconscious, evidently at the point of death. 
Then Shakes and his men came to me. They were very 
humble and apologetic, and explained how Klee-a-keet had sent 
word that he could cure his brother. 

“Tf you will allow him to finish his medicine,” he said, “ and 
he fails, we will pledge our word that there will never be 
another medicine performance in the Stickeen town, and we 
will also stop such rites in the Foreign Village.” 

“ Bring Klee-a-keet here,” I said. ‘‘ We will have a thorough 
understanding.” A messenger soon brought the scowling witch- 
doctor to see me. 

“ Klee-a-keet,” I said, ‘‘ these friends have told me you have 
promised to cure this young man. If I let you finish your in- 
cantantion, there must be an understanding on two things: 
First, you are not to name anybody as bewitching him.” 

At once he began to protest, and said it wasn’t that kind of 
an illness, and there would be no one named a witch. 

_“ And, second, if you fail and this young man dies, you are 
to promise never to give another incantation in this town, and 
no other Indian doctor will be allowed to perform.” 

He looked very sullen and demurred somewhat, but the 
Stickeens all said: 

“Yes, you cannot go through with this performance unless 
you make this promise.” 

From my knowledge of the condition of the patient, I was 
satisfied that he could not live more than twenty-four hours 
at the longest, and decided to take a chance. 

“Very well,’ I said. “I am going to allow you to complete 


150 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


your incantation. I have written here a pledge that you are to 
give back the goods paid you by Shakes in case you do not 
cure the sick man; that you are to name no one as a witch, and 
that if you fail this time you are never to perform in the 
Stickeen town again.” 

I made him make a mark to his name as I wrote it, and had 
it witnessed by Shakes and Sam Tahtain. 

“ Now,” I said, “‘ go ahead, and make the biggest and strong- 
est medicine you have ever made; call in all your five Yakes. 
Do your best. We will make this a test between truth and 
Shamanism.” 

My people seemed quite troubled about my stand. ‘The 
struggle in their minds between faith in the old and the faith 
in the new was very apparent, but they acquiesced. Mrs. 
Dickinson, who had plucked up courage after my former suc- 
cess, openly derided Shakes and his friends. 

“You think you are strong,” she jeered. ‘‘ You are only 
mosquitoes buzzing around. One little slap of the Christian 
white man’s hand, and you are gone.” 

The din of that night’s performance still rings in my ears. 
It was more than half a mile from my house to that of Shakes, 
but I could hear the drums beating and the sticks rattling on 
the medicine boards and the wild wailing of their songs. The 
incantation lasted until almost morning. Klee-a-keet practically 
wore himself out, and his trance at the end of his incantation 
was more real than simulated. When he came to he said the 
young man would get well. ‘My Yake tells me that he will 
eat something when the sun is high, and that will be a sign to 
you that he will recover quickly.” 

Then Klee-a-keet’s young men and relatives, who were there 
in full force, gathered up the great fee of blankets, guns, am- 
munition, Indian boxes, beads and other valuable articles, fully 
a thousand dollars’ worth, which had been displayed upon the 
platform. They carried these up the beach beyond my house 





SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 151 


to the Foreign Town, and Klee-a-keet went hastily to the stores 
to complete his trading before sailing for his own country. 

But he was too late. There is no doubt in my mind that the 
young man’s death was hastened by the noise and stifling 
breath of that crowd. About noon there was a sound of pat- 
tering feet along the beach in front of my house. The whole . 
family of Shakes and many other Stickeens were running with 
all their speed to the Foreign Town. Matthew and Stickeen 
Johnny rushed into my house and told me that Shakes’ brother 
was dead, and the tribe was going to gather up the goods they 
had paid as fee to Klee-a-keet, and send him away from Fort 
Wrangell. 

Fearing there would be violence, I hurried up to Klee-a-keet’s 
house. I found him standing out on the beach near his canoe 
cursing and struggling. Shakes and his family were gathering 
up the blankets and other articles that had been paid to him. 
They left Klee-a-keet nothing except his canoe. He was beside 
himself with rage. As I came on the scene he turned his face, 
from which the paint had been partially washed, and gave me 
the most awful look of hatred I have ever experienced. I 
walked right up to him, when suddenly he darted into the 
house of his friends close by and snatched up a big knife, made 
out of a Russian bayonet, brandished it in the air and jumped 
at me to sink it in my breast. 

Matthew was too quick for him. With several others of my 
men, who had rushed to my rescue, Matthew caught Klee-a- 
keet’s wrist as the knife was descending upon me, then quickly 
twisted it out of his hand and sent him whirling down on the 
gravel of the beach. The Stickeens, infuriated at the attempt 
to murder their missionary, picked Klee-a-keet up and put him 
in his canoe, and hustled after him his wife and children and 
his two men. They shoved the canoe off into the water, and 
told them to be gone. / 

Matthew brought the knife to me. It was a beautiful 


152 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


trophy! The handle was of crab-apple wood, carved in the 
semblance of a wolf’s head with abalone shell eyes and teeth. 
I placed it in my cabinet of Indian curios and later gave it to 
my friend, Dr. Holland, curator of the Carnegie Museum at 
Pittsburgh, and it is now in the anthropological department of 
that great institution. 

With the exception of but one other attempt by a Stickeen 
Iht to make medicine for Minnie, one of Mrs. McFarland’s 
girls, who was dying with consumption, and whose mother was 
a member of the congregation, but was inclined to the “old 
fashions,” this was the last real trouble we had with the medi- 
cine-men at Fort Wrangell. This second trouble was promptly 
put down by the native Council, although Minnie’s mother be- 
longed to Shakes’ family and pleaded for one more chance for 
the medicine-men. 

This, however, was accomplished by the Council: An agree- 
ment was made to the effect that no one was allowed to make 
any trouble about witchcraft. If the Indians “ dreamed,” they 
were not allowed to tell their dreams in public. 

Of course the foreign Indians all followed the old ways. 
One night the Christian natives were holding a great feast in 
the house of Tow-a-att. It was a white man’s feast, and the 
viands were hardtack, stewed venison, clam chowder and cof- 
fee. Mrs. McFarland and I were the guests of honour, and had 
a table by ourselves on the upper platform. After the post- 
prandial speeches there were children’s games: Twirling the 
Plate, King William Was, and the native Flag Game. They 
were all having a wonderful time, the old men and women join- 
ing in the fun. Suddenly Shakes entered the room, circled the 
crowd and came up to me with Stickeen Johnny and said: 
“Mr. Young, there is a case of witchcraft trouble in the For- 
eign Town. Come and see about it.” 

I slipped out of the house and followed Shakes. It was a 
very dark night, but Shakes had a lantern, and we made our 





SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 153 


way past the Fort and Customs House and up to the straggling 
village of the strange tribes. Shakes went into a small Indian 
shack, where we found a man of the Kake tribe sitting sullenly 
by a stove in which a fire was burning. His wife was lying on 
a mattress on the floor, groaning as if in pain. Shakes asked 
bluntly: “ Where is the little girl?’ There was no answer. 
Again Shakes asked where the child was, but the man asserted 
that there was no one there. The woman began to groan more 
loudly, and Shakes, who had the keen ear of a hunter, decided 
that she was doing this for a purpose. Then we heard between 
her groans another sound which seemed to come from the 
ground. 

Shakes handed me the lantern, and he and Stickeen Johnny 
took hold of the mattress on which the woman was lying, and 
drew it to another part of the room. This disclosed a trap- 
door in the floor. Shakes took a piece of iron that was lying 
by the stove and pried up the plank. Down in a hole under 
the floor, about three or four feet deep, lay a naked child, some 
five or six years of age, sobbing. When the light was flashed 
upon her she began to cry loudly. Johnny jumped down into 
the hole, and lifted her in his arms and handed her up to me. 
Her hands were tied tightly behind her back, and we found 
on her body marks or stripes, as if she had been cruelly 
beaten. Without saying anything, Johnny hunted around and 
found her clothes and a little blanket, in which he wrapped 
her, and then with an angry word to the frightened man and 
woman we marched out. 

We saw a bright light in Colonel Crittenden’s house, and 
took the child in there. The Colonel’s woman prepared some 
bread and milk which the child devoured ravenously. She was 
apparently starved. When we asked how long since she had 
eaten anything, she said: ‘“ Many days.” When questioned 
why she was put down in that hole she did not know. Shakes 
had been informed, however, that a medicine-man had named 


154 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


her as bewitching the woman, and they had begun to torture 
her. They might have put her to death had we not interfered. 

We took the child to the village and put her in Mrs. Mc- 
Farland’s care. But before morning the Kake man and his 
wife left the town in their canoe, and so far as we were able 
to learn they never returned. The little girl was named 
Georgie, in honour of George Shakes, her rescuer. Her father 
was a white man, formerly collector of customs at Sitka. 

There were other cases of witchcraft, but they did not get 
farther than ugly talks. The Stickeen medicine-men, as well as 
those of some of the foreigners, were afraid to attempt their 
incantations. The news spread rapidly to other tribes that we 
were protecting those who were persecuted for witchcraft, and 
Fort Wrangell soon became a city of refuge. Many who were 
in trouble in their own villages would come to us for protection. 

At one time there were seven girls and six boys in our school 
under our care, who had been accused, and in some cases tied 
up, as witches. One boy of ten years, who belonged to the 
Hoonah tribe, and whose home was on Chichagof Island, one 
hundred and eighty miles from Fort Wrangell, had been tied 
up and whipped with devil’s-clubs and threatened with death. 
His mother cut him loose one night and gave him her little 
canoe and some dried salmon, and told him to go to us at 
Wrangell for protection. He paddled by night the entire dis- 
tance; it took him about twenty days. He went down Chat- 
ham Straits, across Prince Frederick Sound, through Rocky 
Passage between Kuprianoff and Kuiu Islands into Clarence 
Straits, past Zarembo Island and into Etolin Harbour. Each 
morning he would pull his canoe into the woods and would 
search for food. He lived on the dried salmon which his 
mother had given him and on clams, crabs and mussels that he 
was able to catch. He came to us weary and haggard, with a ~ 
flickering light of terror in his eyes. He was in our school and 
under our protection until manhood. 





SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 155 


Although we had no further trouble in Wrangell with witch- 
craft, the belief persisted in other tribes, and many stories of 
cruelty and diabolical persecution reached us long after Chris- 
tian teachers and missionaries had come to those towns. 

In some cases lack of firmness and courage on the part of 
the missionaries was to blame for this state of affairs. To this 
day I suppose the majority of the Thlingit and Hydas believe 
in witchcraft, and often the children in the government schools 
send their playmates to Coventry as witches. Frequently par- 
ents have withdrawn their children because the witch children 
were allowed to attend the schools. Superstition is hydra- 
headed and dies hard. 

As to the medicine-men, my experience with Klee-a-keet made 
me so indignant that we took an uncompromising attitude to- 
wards them. When a Stickeen /it made an incantation in a 
house on the outskirts of the village our Council was called. 
We summoned the offender, made him return the fee he had 
collected and talked to him so severely that he voluntarily cut 
off his long hair and presented the ugly mop to me as a sign of 
his surrender. I put it in my cabinet as a proud trophy, but 
my wife, who thought she detected in it uncanny signs of life, 
put it in the stove. 

Another Jkt of the Hoonah tribe was less tractable. He was 
performing in full blast when I went up and stopped him and 
sent the crowd home. He made such a fuss that we summoned 
him before the Council. Not proving amenable to reason, we 
laid hands on him, and while he was cursing us and calling on 
his Yake to come and blast us, three strong Stickeens held him 
fast while I cut off his tousled hair. He threatened to kill him- 
self in order that his family might collect damages, but when, 
instead of imploring him to remain alive, I encouraged him in 
his suicidal intention, saying that the country would be better 
without him, he concluded to spite me by continuing to exist. 

The great Klee-a-keet himself, after burying my soul and 


: 


156 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


making a mere phantom of me, and predicting my death in 
three years, when the third “cold” went by without my 
“passing on,” grew discouraged, went on a big spree and blew 
out his brains. 

The Thlingit and Hyda Shaman has almost disappeared. 
Rumours reach us of one or two, who live in remote nooks of 
the Archipelago, and are secretly visited by the more “ old 
fashioned ” of the natives. But the foolish and cruel cult is a 
thing of the past. Sick natives patronize the white physicians, 
and the enlightened make sport of their credulous forebears. 

But so great had been our trouble with these fiends incarnate 
that I am almost ready to adopt the theory of a native Salva- 
tion Army exhorter—that the /hts all turn to devils when they 
die, and are permitted to haunt and torment bad people, while 
restrained from harming the good. 

Soon after the radio came in vogue, about 1923, one of my 
young white friends at Wrangell, Julius Mason, who was in- 
genious, rigged up a radio set and invited me to “ listen in.” It 
was a Clear, crisp night. When I put the receivers to my ears 
they were assailed by a bedlam of shrieks and screams and thin 
banshee wails. 

“ Static is pretty bad to-night,” said Julius. 

“Ts that what you call it? ” I jeered. ‘‘ You can’t fool me, 
my young friend. I know those fellows. I recognize their 
voices. They are the Indian doctors who used to fight me here 
at Wrangell forty-five years ago. That long-drawn yell between 
the cry of a screech-owl and that of a loon is Kowee, the 
Tacoo Jhét mourning for the blankets Klee-a-keet robbed him 
of. That mocking call of the laughing gull is the red-haired 
Chilcoot doctor, Skundoo-oo, while that vicious outburst of 
snarls and screams, like a fight between a lynx and an eagle, 
can be nobody but the worst devil of them all—old Klee-a-keet 
himself—who has come back to curse me and make an incan- 
tation against me.” 





XV 


TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 


HE triumphant end of our Council meeting in Shakes’ 
house produced a natural elation over the victory. 


But we soon realized that innumerable skirmishes and 
some real battles were to be fought before the new order 
could be established and the old relegated to the past. The 
eagerness of the people—not only of the Stickeen tribe but 
of others—to be on our side was pathetic. These primitive 
folk had possessed a quite elaborate system of old laws and 
customs which were being broken down and discarded. But 
something definite must take their place. Formerly the whole 
of the winter season was taken up in feasting, dancing, pot- 
latches, claims for payment on one pretext or another, house 
building, totem pole raising and all the occupations of savage 
life. The younger men and women rioted all night and slept 
all day. None of the people could read or write. While the 
women were employing a great part of their time in making 
moccasins, mats, baskets, blankets and other articles, the men 
had nothing to do in the villages. Many of them, of course, 
spent much time in hunting and trapping, and there were fre- 
quent excursions to other tribes to settle old difficulties and 
commence new ones. 

Now, when we attempted to change all this we found our 
hands very full. Of course, the preaching of the Word was 
the principal thing, and the people attended our meetings en 
masse, though with very vague understanding as to what it was 
all about. They enjoyed the singing, while gathering nothing 
of the meaning of the songs. 

157 


158 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Very often, in after months and years, those who had lis- 
tened to our preaching Sunday after Sunday would say at 
prayer-meeting or at the Council, when the same old truths 
were repeated by us: “‘ That is a good word. We never heard 
it before.” We were constantly learning how little progress we 
were making. We were becoming disillusioned. 

Our daily task resolved itself into a round of petty trifles. 
Even before we had our breakfast delegation after delegation 
of rank-smelling natives would come into our house, recite 
their compliments, tell a long story of self-praise, a longer story 
of depreciation of some one else, and a still longer recital of 
what they wished us to do for them. Domestic difficulties, 
sickness, death, the care of children, but mostly personal 
grievances were told with endless iteration. It may be ques- 
tioned whether these Thlingits were more egotistic than the 
whites, but certainly their self-praise was more baldly ex- 
pressed: 

‘““Me good man. Me do nothing bad. Me no lie; me no 
steal; me no bad with kleuchman; me no ol’ fashin. Klah- 
quots he say bad words; he do bad things; all time he lie”; 
etc;, etc. 

Grown-up, naughty children they were, and infinite patience 
must be exercised. At first we heard them patiently, clear to 
the end of their long stories, but gradually acquired the art of 
bringing them to a point and then dismissing them without 
hurting their feelings. At last it was shortened almost to the 
formula of Scattergood Baines—‘‘ G-bye—G-bye ”—and to the 
door we would march. They would reluctantly follow, and 
while shaking hands with them we would gently push them out, 
invite them to come again, and the interview would end with 
a weary sigh on our part: “ Fare-thee-well, and thy odours go 
with thee! ” Only the odours, unfortunately, would not always 
go. There would be raising of windows and opening of doors 
and a general airing. 


TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 159 


Constantly we were being unpleasantly shocked. One thing 
we noticed with surprise was the great number of lame women, 
whose one leg sagged; and their walk had that peculiar flop and 
swing that gave them the designation of ‘ side-wheelers.”’ 
There were so many of them that we often wondered at the 
cause. We laid it to impurity of blood causing hip disease. It 
was long before we found the truth about it, which was this: 
When a girl baby was born, especially if she belonged to a 
family of high caste, the midwife immediately dislocated one 
or both hips of the poor infant in order, as they said, that they 
might be good and prolific mothers! This horrible practice, 
which peopled those tribes with hundreds of hopeless cripples, 
was put down only with great difficulty. 

After Christianity had made some progress and the children 
were at school, the missionary ladies who visited native homes 
taught mothers the care of their children and showed them the 
better way. But the babies died in great numbers. Out of 
every twelve or fifteen only two or three would survive. Syph- 
ilis, trachoma, hydrocephalus, cerebral meningitis and other 
diseases killed the poor little ones. The mothers seemed to 
love their children and seldom punished them, but they died. 
Immorality was so prevalent that most of the young wives were 
barren. Little girls, even before the age of puberty, were ped- 
dled by their mothers. While there were exceptions to these 
conditions and some houses were full of healthy children, they 
were but few. 

In treating the many questions that arose, there was one res- 
olution that became firmly fixed in my mind, even before 
I heard it formulated by that wonderful missionary, Father 
Duncan of Metlakatla. It was this: 

“ Never recede from a position once taken, even though it 
proves to be a mistake. The natives must learn to have im- 
plicit confidence in their missionary, and to think that he can 
make no mistakes and do no wrong. To them he must be 


160 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


omnipotent and omniscient. Even while he laments his own 
weakness and ignorance, he must keep up this appearance.” 

Our danger in Alaska was that we would claim too little au- 
thority instead of too much. We insisted on Christian mar- 
riage. We could not do otherwise, and yet this led to many 
absurd situations. Tow-a-att, our best Christian chief, had two 
wives—Eve and her daughter Julia by a former marriage. 
After the native custom the old woman, when Tow-a-att built 
a new house, had formally given her daughter to him for his 
second wife, but Eve remained as the supreme mistress of the 
establishment. When the Christians came and required mo- 
nogamy the question was, what would Tow-a-att do? When 
he was required to put away one wife he promptly chose to 
keep Julia, the younger one; but Eve remained as the mother- 
in-law, and her position in the household was not affected. 

In other cases, however, there were greater conflicts, and 
many old chiefs remained polygamists, although inclined to- 
wards Christianity, until civil law was established; then they 
were required to marry one of their wives and put the other 
away. In case of an Indian woman living with a white man, if 
the case was clear and the white man willing to marry his 
woman, she could be received into the Church. Marriage be- 
came the formal act of embracing Christianity. 

One great difficulty was to keep the people amused and in- 
terested. Their old dances discontinued, what were they to 
do? Children’s games, Christian feasts, picnics, etc., seemed 
too tame after the excitement and hurrah of their all-night 
dances and potlatches. That so many of them remained stead- 
fast was due to the power of the Gospel and to their own 
susceptibility to civilization, more than to our wisdom. 

Matthew, in setting his face like a flint against any com- 
promise, even the hearing of an Indian song, said of these 
things: “He make my heart shake.” The school children 
with the songs and games they learned from their teachers 


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TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 161 


were a great help and were, indeed, the parents of their parents, 
in the ways of Christian civilization. We could not have ac- 
complished anything worth while without our schools. The 
McFarland Home for Girls, followed by Mrs. Young’s Train- 
ing School for Boys, and these followed afterwards by the 
Sitka mission, were our one hope of ultimate triumph and the 
establishment of a real civilization. 

Two very important events in December, 1878, must be re- 
corded here. The first one was my journey to Sitka to bring 
back my bride. This should have occurred in November. 
Our plans were made for it. With Mrs. McFarland’s assistance 
I had prepared my house in the officers’ quarters of the Fort. 
The old steamer “ California,” Captain Thorn commanding, 
came into port. My passage was engaged, and my valise taken 
aboard. The ship was to leave at eleven o’clock that night. 
I was working hard at my house, expecting to be notified by 
the whistle, which was always blown half an hour before the 
ship’s departure. Although Captain Thorn vigorously dis- 
claimed it, I have always suspected him of stealing away in- 
tentionally in order to play a practical joke upon me. At any 
rate, the boat slipped off and left me ashore. Imagine my 
predicament. No possible communication with Sitka for a 
month. No way of explaining the matter to the young lady. 
Visions of her indignation and the disruption of our engage- 
ment! 

I knew nothing about canoe navigation, and the white men 
and natives alike discouraged any attempt to reach Sitka by 
that means. Had I known as much about canoeing as I after- 
wards learned, I would have started at once to thread the wind- 
ing ways one hundred and sixty miles to Sitka and would have 
appeared there only four or five days late. But I did not know. 
Luckily Colonel Crittenden was aboard the vessel and could 
testify of my readiness and eagerness to take the voyage, and 
thus allay the fears and impatience of Miss Kellogg. 


162 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


At any rate, the wedding came off in December, and you 
may be sure I did not miss ¢hat boat. A day or two before the 
boat arrived, old Shustaak, the Indian chief, sent for me. He 
had given up all hope of surviving long, but had one last re- 
quest to make. He had heard that there was a small brass can- 
non at Sitka which had been left by the Russians. He said: 
‘“‘T wish you to buy that big gun. I have sent to Victoria for 
a nice box with silver plate in it and lined with very warm 
blankets. Since you will not let them burn my body, perhaps 
it will keep me warm; and my family will shoot off this big gun 
many times at my funeral. I just want to live long enough to 
see the big gun. I want the finest cannon in Alaska, so that 
all other chiefs will envy me.” So I had to attend to that 
commission. 

Then a wedding dinner was given us and our friends in the 
little dining-room of the steamer; and a stormy, seasick 
voyage around Cape Ommaney, brought us home. 

But, that same week, at Wrangell there occurred a tragedy 
which illustrates the lawless and unprotected condition of the 
Territory. The night on which I sailed to my wedding at 
Sitka, just before we stepped on board, news was brought that 
a murder had been committed. When we returned, I learned 
the particulars. As soon as the ice had formed and hardened 
on the Stickeen River sufficiently for a man with a dog team 
and sled to descend the river from Steamboat Landing, one 
hundred and fifty miles from its mouth, there came some two 
hundred miners and prospectors to Wrangell, ready to take the 
monthly steamer to Victoria and Portland. They would spend 
the winter ‘“ outside ” and return in the spring. It would take 
a week for the “ California ” to make the trip to Sitka and re- 
turn. These miners, of course, were in for as much of a good 
time as they could have in the squalid little town of Fort 
Wrangell. Old Dick Willoughby, a prominent character of the 
Northland, and one-legged Joe Twan, with their fiddles, fur- 


——e 7 az 


aa tl 





136° Longitude West 





(Taylor) 
Glacier 


from Greenwich 133° 


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134° 











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ees 
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Tosemite Bay 


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ISLAND 








VOYAGES OF 
MUIR AND YOUNG 
1879 and 1880 eS 
IN SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA 
SCALE OF MILES 
20 30 40 
Voyage of 1879 
—————- Voyage of 1880 


Wddddddl Discoveries of 


0 lu 50 





135° 


CORONATION 
LAND 


1s a 
lo 3 ee 


Muir and Young 








EVELAND 
PENINSULA 

















TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 163 


nished the music for a dance. The gentler sex was represented 
only by native women. Whiskey and hooch abounded during 
the festivities. One of the miners, who was well-filled with 
“ forty-rod,” became jealous of another miner, possessed him- 
self of a pistol and shot his rival dead. 

The miners of the North have always been a rather superior 
class of men. Many of them were well educated—lawyers, 
physicians, college-bred and refined. They knew just what to 
do in such an emergency. There was only the one alternative 
—either to arrest, try and execute justice upon the murderer, 
or let him go scot-free, to repeat his crime elsewhere. The man 
had already acquired a bad reputation, and there were authen- 
tic stories of previous murders committed by him. Spontane- 
ously the miners called a ‘‘ Miners’ Meeting.” They first 
elected one of their number as sheriff, with orders to arrest the 
man and keep him in custody; then they elected a judge, who 
had been gold commissioner in the Cassiar—a Victoria lawyer. 
The judge appointed attorneys for the prosecution and defense, 
and ordered the sheriff to empanel a jury for the session of the 
court, which was to be held in one of the stores the next morn- 
ing. Court convened at nine o’clock, a jury was chosen, wit- 
nesses were examined, the man found guilty of murder in the 
first degree; the judge sentenced the prisoner to be executed 
at two-thirty that same afternoon, and the court adjourned— 
at eleven-thirty! Speedy justice, but all in the best of order. 

Then, in my absence, they sent for Mrs. McFarland, and she 
visited the terrified prisoner, and prayed with him as best she 
could. He was a coward, as such men usually are, and did 
nothing but beg for his life. At the appointed time the prisoner 
was led to the rude gallows, consisting of a couple of poles and 
a crosspiece, hastily erected. A long rope was procured and a 
noose placed around the prisoner’s neck, and the rope was 
thrown over the gallows. Then every man on the beach, white 
or native, was compelled to take hold of the rope; at a given 


164 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


signal they rushed up the beach, jerked the man in the air and 
held him there until he was pronounced dead. 

On my return to Wrangell I found the duty awaiting me of 
burying the man who was shot and the murderer, in one cere- 
mony. Coffins had been rudely constructed, and those who re- 
mained at Fort Wrangell all turned out to the funeral. Colonel 
Crittenden and I procured from the judge at the trial a full 
account of the ‘“‘ court proceedings ” and sent it to the United 
States Judge Deady at Portland. In due time we received a 
letter from him disclaiming any jurisdiction over Alaska, but 
commending the course the miners had pursued in the case. I 
remember one sentence of Judge Deady’s letter: 

“The miners of the North can always be depended upon 
to do the right thing in a case like that, and do it speedily. 
It would be well if our organized courts were as prompt and as 
just.” 

Disorder and justice, tragedy and comedy, sorrow and laugh- 
ter always have been strangely mixed in the formative days of 
the Western frontiers. 

The institution of the festival of Christmas at Wrangell was 
a great event. Our appeals had secured boxes sent with gifts 
from the Eastern churches. As the natives of the other tribes 
had departed to their own villages, only the Stickeens and a 
few Tacoos, Kakes, and Hydas remained throughout the win- 
ter. These celebrated “‘ Kiswus.” My bride instructed the 
young people in Christmas carols. Mrs. McFarland had a 
dozen or more girls in her “‘ Home,” and these eagerly helped 
prepare the big Christmas tree in the barracks. 

When the time came, all of the natives and many of the 
whites were in attendance. Everybody received something. 
Songs were sung, and childish plays followed; then, one after 
another, the head men of the town gave ‘‘ white men’s feasts ” 
in their houses. From that time on the calendar of those 
natives was counted from the two great days of the year— 





TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 165 


Fourth of July and Christmas. As soon as one was over the 
question was constantly asked, “ How long until the other 
feast? ” 

All of the following winter and spring the tide of sentiment 
was setting strongly towards us. School was well attended, and 
the children began to make some real progress—even the old 
men and women came to Sunday School, church and prayer- 
meetings, and the joy of speaking in meeting was experienced. 
Indeed, no urging was needed to get the natives to testify, pray 
and exhort. Instead, we had constantly to put on the brakes. 
Had we allowed it, the prayer-meetings would have continued 
for three or four hours. When the fashion of confessing sins 
commenced it was like a runaway horse, almost beyond control. 
The zealous ones, eager to outdo those who had spoken, often 
would confess even to sins they had never committed. Mrs. 
Dickinson must be given credit for checking the practice of 
entering complaints against and berating one another in these 
prayer-meetings and confessions. But with all the blundering 
and childishness, real progress in the truths and practice of 
Christianity began to be made. 

The hardest and most exciting part of my work that winter 
and spring was my campaign against “ hooch.” In the summer 
and fall we would see great volumes of dark smoke issuing 
from the smoke-hole of many Indian houses. I found the rea- 
son for this in the open making of intoxicating liquors. By the 
confessions of the storekeepers, I learned that from one-half 
to two-thirds of the goods bartered with the natives for their 
furs was black molasses. The United States when it purchased 
Alaska prohibited the importation of any whiskey or other 
intoxicating drinks into the Territory. But it did not prohibit 
the importation of molasses. The soldiers taught the natives 
how to make rum. It was the most villainous and nastiest 
stuff to taste ever concocted, and the most vicious in its ef- 
fect. Whole villages became drunk; mothers lying help- 


166 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


less on the ground with hungry babies rolling over them; 
murderous quarrels were frequent, and unspeakable scenes 
of debauchery and sin were enacted. Of course, we were 
against this great evil. A number of the squaw-men were 
the chief criminals in the manufacture of the awful stuff. I 
could not with any degree of safety or success interfere with 
the white men, but took it upon myself to break up the prac- 
tice of making or selling hooch among the natives. Colonel 
Crittenden, although a hard drinker himself, was with me in 
my attempt to put down the manufacture of liquor—that was 
one of his duties as Customs Collector. I went to the store- 
keepers, and represented to them the foolishness of their fur- 
nishing the natives with means for the manufacture of liquor, 
which would keep them drunk and prevent them from trapping 
and hunting for the furs which formed the principal article of 
barter with the natives. But one would not agree to stop im- 
porting molasses without the consent of the other traders. 

Therefore, in despair, I undertook to carry on a sort of a 
“Carrie Nation ” campaign. I got a hand-ax, and started out. 
one day to break up stills. Most of the Stickeen chiefs had 
declared against drunkenness, but in six or seven houses I 
found the stills going. With Colonel Crittenden’s sanction I 
took Matthew with me. He had been appointed policeman, and 
we entered these houses one after another. I wielded the ax 
myself, broke up the oil-can stills, emptied the mash on the 
ground and destroyed the liquor. Great confusion and clamour 
and threats of violence followed. I completely destroyed the 
means of manufacturing the liquor. This was done without 
any previous warning, except general exhortations in our 
church and prayer-meetings. When drunken Indians at- 
tempted to resist by force, Matthew aided me in subduing 
them. The white men who were manufacturing hooch were 
glad to see me break up the stills of the natives, as it increased 
their own chances of profit. 





TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 167 


I soon heard of stills being set up in small houses by salmon 
streams and in hunting camps at distances from Fort Wrangell 
varying from two to twenty miles. On my own responsibility I 
hired a canoe, manned it with a crew of four of my Christian 
Indians, including Matthew, and set sail to these places. In 
the course of two months I had broken up fifteen to twenty 
stills and destroyed the liquor I found. This was not done 
without much trouble and considerable risk. The natives often 
threatened to shoot me, and in two or three cases my men had 
to take the guns from them. After that year I had little dif- 
ficulty with them. But one cannot always safely cope with 
the insanity of drunkenness. After my first visit to outside 
stills the natives were always on the watch for me and my 
canoe. Frequently, afterwards, when rounding a point I would 
see men and women and even children hurrying to the woods 
carrying their liquor, to hide it outside. 

I did this, of course, without authority or the backing of 
law. The white men frequently warned me that my life was in 
danger, but I had learned that the natives were afraid to kill 
a white man, especially one of position and influence. From 
this beginning at Wrangell, I adopted the plan afterwards, dur- 
ing my long voyages, of breaking up stills in outlying camps 
of the different tribes, but for a number of years I had to re- 
frain from entering a drunken village and attempting to destroy 
the liquor. That would have been simply suicide; but in a 
wild and lawless country a man must take many risks if he 
would succeed in reforming and elevating the people. I used 
to reason thus: “‘ It would be far better to lose my life in try- 
ing to help these natives than to live on, an acquiescent witness 
to all these evils. There are many things more to be dreaded 
than death.” 


XVI 
GREAT EVENTS 


N those early days, I sometimes compared myself to the 
old seaman in Thackeray’s rhyme: 


“O, I am the mate and the captain bold, 
And the cook of the Nancy brig; 
And the bosen tight, and the midshipmite, 
And the crew of the captain's gig.” 


In such case as ours the missionary, if he is a live one, must, 
indeed, be the whole ship. To be sure, he does not accomplish 
this by doing as the sailor did, eating up the others, for there 
are no others to devour. The seas were stormy, and we had 
our choice between lying in our berths as passengers and trying 
to be not too seasick, or of tramping the decks, holding the 
wheel, disciplining the crew, trimming the sails, exerting our- 
selves every minute to keep the ship afloat and going. 

Before my arrival, Mrs. McFarland, by her letters pub- 
lished in Eastern papers, had aroused much interest, and when 
the reports and pleas of my wife and myself were added to 
hers, the interest and help were multiplied. A vast heathen 
country without law or protection, right within the United 
States, where heathen tribes unchecked murdered one another, 
held slaves, made hooch, burned witches, and eliminated all 
ideas of chastity, honesty and humanity! The knowledge of 
this began slowly to seep into the minds of Christians in the 
States. The very small crew of Christian workers, adrift on 
such a troublous sea, commanded wide sympathy. 

The lamentable condition of the young girls at Fort Wrangell 
aroused the most interest. Before my arrival, Mrs. McFarland 

168 





GREAT EVENTS 169 


had made gallant, though often futile, efforts to shelter these 
Indian girls and give them to some extent the advantages of a 
Christian home, free from temptations, where they could learn 
cleanliness and decent housekeeping and the routine of a nor- 
mal Christian life, including a knowledge of the English lan- 
guage and a little of the great wide world as lived in the United 
States. The chief mistake she made, which was repeated by 
Mrs. Young in her later home for boys, was taking the Indian 
girls too freely into her home and at too advanced an age. It 
was inevitable that on many occasions sympathy should run 
away with judgment. 

Frequently girls would come to us for refuge, protesting that 
they wished to live a decent Christian life. We would take 
them in, clean them up, clothe them neatly and enroll them as 
our adopted daughters and pupils. A few weeks or months of 
a life devoid of excitement—an unaccustomed routine—then 
they would disappear. Some white man, attracted by a clean 
and pretty face, would make a bid and the avaricious family 
would sell the girl and off she would go without saying good-bye. 
Often the unheard of, and to them outrageous, act of a girl in 
choosing her own way of life and breaking off from the customs 
that had prevailed, would call for a meeting of the whole fam- 
ily, including ‘‘ the sisters and the cousins and the aunts.” 
This would result in a delegation visiting the girl in the Mc- 
Farland Home, and, as one girl expressed it, “ They talk me 
crazy.” Many were our disastrous experiences. Eventually 
we learned to harden our hearts if we found that any applicant 
for our school was in any degree living according to the gen- 
eral custom of that town. Younger and younger girls were 
chosen, until we were taking under our care little ones of six 
or eight years of age. 

There were bright exceptions to this gloomy picture. Some- 
times these Indian girls showed unexpected strength of char- 
acter. During that winter three of Mrs. McFarland’s girls, 


170 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Tillie, Katie and Minnie, had gone to their homes on Saturday 
afternoon, as was the rule. They were accosted by three 
white men who had planned the interview. Each of them chose 
his girl and they proceeded to make love in the fashion of the 
day, which was by promise of blankets and other goods to the 
parents of the girls, of plenty of new clothes to wear and good 
things to eat and of a high place in the “ society ” of the coun- 
try. The girls heard their pleas without comment, but when 
the men offered caresses in addition to their bribes, the three 
girls started on a brisk walk back to Mrs. McFarland’s Home, 
singing at the top of their voices: 


“ Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin.” 


They found refuge in Mrs. McFarland’s arms and told her all 
about the incident. One of the men in relating his experience 
exclaimed: ‘ T’ll be blanked if I knew there was that kind of 
Indian girls! ” 

In addition to this, the superstition of the natives was always 
a troublesome force. All kinds of stories about the missionaries 
and their designs upon the natives were circulated and believed. 
Designing white men originated many of these. Again and 
again excited mothers would come to the “‘ Home ” demanding 
their children. They had heard that we were about to take all 
of these girls to Victoria, Tacoma or Portland and sell them 
as slaves. Once the story ran that we were all wizards and 
witches and had got these children into our power simply that 
we might take their eyes out and boil them up into a big 
medicine to work destruction upon their people. The more ab- 
surd the story the more readily it was believed. 

With the spring of ’79 came the return northward of many 
hundreds of Cassiar miners, whites and Chinese, and the return 
of natives of other tribes, seeking work, trade and excitement. 
News came that the Eastern churches had responded to our 


4 
of 
f 
a 
¢ 
: 
i 





—— oe. 


GREAT EVENTS 171 


appeals and that there would be money forthcoming to build 
a new McFarland Home for Girls and a church at Fort Wran- 
gell. Our Church, thus far, had been the only missionary force 
at work in Alaska, except the old declining Russian Church. 

About May, Archbishop Seaghers, a high prelate of the 
Society of Jesus, came to Fort Wrangell, with Father Althorf, 
a priest. These two gentlemen came at once to see me, took 
dinner with us, and there commenced a very pleasant acquaint- 
ance which ripened into friendship. When the Archbishop 
asked if there was not room for his Church as well as ours, I 
answered: ‘“ Yes; there is this large Foreign Town up the 
beach in which we have been unable to make even a beginning. 
They are heathen without any knowledge whatever of Chris- 
tianity. There is virgin ground for you and I wish you would 
till it.” 

The Archbishop thanked me, looked over that ground, and 
I think they afterwards were sorry they did not follow my 
advice literally, for the efforts of that Church to get a hold upon 
the Stickeens were entirely fruitless. One great reason for the 
continued adherence of the Stickeens to us was that the Arch- 
bishop and priest came from Victoria—‘‘ King George’s Coun- 
try,’ while we were ‘“ Boston Men,” and belonged, as all the 
natives did, to the United States. 

The Archbishop with Father Althorf at once selected a site 
for a church and commenced to clear ground at the same time 
with us. Their little church was completed before ours, and 
services were held in it for a couple of years, when Father 
Althorf was removed to the new town of Juneau, and their 
church at Wrangell was abandoned. Not until the gold 
stampede of 1897, which brought hundreds of whites to Alaska, 
was the Catholic Mission resumed. 

A word about Archbishop Seaghers: He was one of the most 
cultured and richly endowed men I have ever known; he talked 
many languages with equal fluency. He was at home in any 


172 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


subject of conversation and was one of the most devoted and 
enterprising of the Jesuit fathers. From his pen came to me 
and to Father Althorf from interior Alaska letters written in 
Latin, telling of his adventures on the Yukon. He is enrolled 
among the martyrs, for he met his death from a jealous at- 
tendant, whom he had taken with him from Portland, Oregon, 
and who murdered him near Nulato in 1880. 

July 14th, 1879, there arrived at Wrangell three great men 
of the Church—Dr. Henry Kendall, secretary of the Presby- 
terian Board of Home Missions; Dr. A. L. Lindsley, the Father 
of Alaska Missions and pastor of the First Church of Portland, 
Oregon; and Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the Pioneer of the West—the 
man who had accompanied Mrs. McFarland on her first trip 
to Fort Wrangell and who backed up our efforts to raise money 
and get helpers for our great work. These men came with 
their wives—not on a mere pleasure trip—but bringing money 
and plans for our work. They remained with us for a full 
month. There were excursions up the Stickeen River to the 
head of navigation, down south to the old abandoned Stickeen 
town and northward through Wrangell Narrows to the Glaciers 
of the Mainland. There were counsels galore; the organiza- 
tion of the first American church in the Territory and the com- 
pletion of the plans for our work. It was a month of inspira- 
tion and joy. 

Their visit did us great good and, indeed, was a turning 
point into a larger and fuller channel of Christian civilization. 
To me, however, the greatest event of the summer and, in- 
deed, of my life in Alaska, was the arrival on the same steamer 
of a fourth big man—America’s greatest naturalist—John 
Muir. This red-whiskered, blue-eyed Scotch-American was 
incidental to the party of clergymen, being by accident on the 
same steamer. After eleven years of study among the moun- 
tains of California, his untamed spirit launched into a new 
and great adventure among the mountains and glaciers of 





GREAT EVENTS 173 


Alaska. He was esteemed and welcomed by the doctors of 
divinity, but little appreciated by any of them. He lived in a 
different world; while in full sympathy, so far as he gave it 
any thought, with their misison, to him the supreme problem 
was to find out how God made this wonderful world of ours 
and what were the marks of His tools in forming this part of 
it. He was here to study glacial action, as well as the flora 
and geology of the region. 

I am a firm believer in instinctive spiritual affinities, and I 
know that there was an intangible but very real bond of union 
between Muir and me from the time our hands first met in that 
clasp of friendship; the strongest and warmest friendship I 
have ever experienced in a life blessed with many friends. We 
understood one another. Our relation was always that of 
teacher and pupil. He was my captain and guide, leading me 
into hitherto unexplored regions of interest and inspiration. 

Dr. Lindsley had come to complete the organization of the 
church. He brought with him a carpenter, Mr. Regner, to 
superintend the work. Dr. Kendall, of course, came as the 
executive of the missionary Board in the interests of the erec- 
tion of the new McFarland Home for Girls. He had authority 
to set on foot not only this enterprise but other plans for the 
Christian civilization of the savages of Southeastern Alaska. 
Dr. Jackson came unofficially but by invitation, because of his 
ability to secure money and men for the work. Miss Maggie 
Dunbar was to be Mrs. McFarland’s assistant teacher. Dr. 
Lindsley, being Mrs. Young’s uncle, stayed with his wife at 
our house. The others found quarters in Mrs. McFarland’s 
Home; while John Muir was taken in by John Vanderbilt, who 
had recovered from his attack of inflammatory rheumatism and 
had resumed his task as receiver for the Lear Store. 

The natives fairly outdid themselves in their efforts to im- 
press the white visitors with their earnestness in accepting the 
“new way.” But we had already acquired sufficient experi- 


174 __——s«-HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


ence and met with enough disappointments to know that most 
of this was, as one of the chiefs expressed it, ‘‘ sugar talk ”; but 
it did the natives good and sounded well in the reports of the 
doctors of divinity. 

The reader is not to infer, however, that the speeches were 
all sham. On the contrary they were sincere; only our visi- 
tors, lacking our trying experiences, placed far more value 
upon the protestations of the natives than we could. We knew 
that months and years of alternating disappointments and suc- 
cesses must be spent before we could feel that material progress 
had been made towards Christian civilization. 

The little river steamboat “‘ Cassiar ” was chartered to take 
the party on an excursion. The first trip planned was to the 
Tacoo, Auk and Chilcat tribes to the North; but neither Cap- 
tain Lane of the river boat nor the members of the party had 
any idea what they were undertaking. The engineer of the 
boat, Robert Moran, an educated young man who was after- 
wards elected mayor of Seattle, demurred: 

‘‘ My engine is not fitted for running on salt water,” he said, 
‘“‘and you cannot make that trip safely.” 

The captain, however, talked him into starting. We visited 
the mouth of the Stickeen to get the boilers filled with fresh 
water, steamed out twenty miles to the beginning of Wrangell 
Narrows and through the long, narrow winding passage to 
Prince William Sound and across it to Endicott Glacier. By 
that time the cylinder was pounding ominously and the en- 
gineer refused to take the risk of steaming farther northward. 
We had traveled about thirty miles of the more than one hun- 
dred and fifty each way that we must traverse to make the 
trip to Chilcat. We had to turn back. 

However, we ran into the deep bay made by that very beau- 
tiful and interesting glacier which, viewed from the northern 
entrance to Wrangell Narrows, seems like a great white column 
fallen from its base and lying across the wooded hills. We 


oe SES OO OR, SE 





GREAT EVENTS 175 


went in to get a closer acquaintance with these beautiful mon- 
sters called glaciers, very little understood by any of us, except 
John Muir. We approached as closely as we could safely and 
anchored directly in front of the ice. Muir and I engaged a 
sailor to set us ashore in the dory. As we were pushing off, 
Dr. Jackson asked to come along, bringing with him a stout 
Indian, whose duty it was to carry the little doctor over the 
glacial streams we would encounter. We landed in a sea of 
granite mud, and had more than a half a mile of it before 
reaching the glacier. A weary struggle through the mud 
brought us at last to the rocky moraine, which the plowshare 
of the ice had thrown up in front of the glacier. 

Muir and I had a wonderful two hours exploring the deep 
canyons of crystal; the blue caverns and purple brows of the 
glacier. We penetrated deep into its inmost recesses. No 
crystal palace ever erected by man could approach this won- 
derful edifice. It was my first intimate acquaintance with a 
glacier, and I went back to the boat thrilled and awed as if 
from the presence of God in one of His most wonderful cathe- 
drals. To quote from Muir: 


“The whole front of the glacier was gashed and sculptured 
into a maze of shallow caves and crevasses, and a bewildering 
variety of novel architectural forms, clusters of glittering lance- 
tipped spires, gables and obelisks, bold outstanding bastions 
and plain mural cliffs, adorned along the top with fretted 
cornice and battlement, while every gorge and crevasse, groove 
and hollow, was filled with light, shimmering and throbbing in 
pale-blue tones of ineffable tenderness and beauty.” 


Then followed the greatest adventure of all my life in 
Alaska. Having written this elsewhere, I can only mention 
here the chartering of the “ Cassiar”’ for a trip to the head of 
navigation, one hundred and fifty miles up the Stickeen River. 
Besides our party, John Vanderbilt and his wife and a young 
lady visiting them were our passengers. Passing the Great 


176 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Glacier at the boundary line between Alaska and British 
Columbia, thirty miles up the river, we could only stare and 
wonder, reserving the exploration of the glacier to our return 
trip. Then came the Lower and Upper Canyons with their 
columned walls, the river dashing and roaring through them; 
the steamer labouring to its utmost, every timber quivering as 
it inched its way slowly, veering from side to side to find the 
easiest water. Then a part of the day at Telegraph Creek, the 
beginning of the Cassiar Trail, whence trains of pack-mules 
and horses conveyed the goods of the miners from one to three 
hundred miles farther on to the gold diggings. From Tele- 
graph Creek we dropped down fifteen miles to Glenora, a little 
hamlet of miners’ shacks. We reached this shortly before noon 
of a warm sunny day. 

“Make yourselves comfortable,” Captain Lane said, “ until 
to-morrow morning. We cannot descend the river while the 
wind is blowing a gale up it, as always occurs on the afternoon 
of a sunny day.” 

That day of days! I never can express what it was and 
has been ever since to me. In many respects it was the turn- 
ing point of my life. The delight and exhilaration of that 
climb of ten miles up the mountain side with Muir, when I was 
learning from his childlike enthusiasm, joined to his deep in- 
sight into the “ inner life,” as he used to express it, of plants 
and mountain landscapes, drinking from a fountain of whose 
existence I had been unaware. I breathed for the first time 
the aura of the mountains. At the end of the day we ran our 
desperate race with the sunset, climbing up a thousand feet of 
crumbling and disintegrating rock, pulling ourselves up the per- 
pendicular faces by sheer strength and enthusiasm. Scram- 
bling around impossible ledges, feeling the fearful delight of 
mortal peril; always right up, sure that we would conquer that 
mountain and see the sunset from the highest pinnacle—only 
a true mountain climber can realize the joy of it! 





GREAT EVENTS 177 


Then the slip into the crevasse, the wrench as both shoul- 
ders were dislocated and the plunge downward in the sliding 
gravel! The miraculous stop as my feet hung over the ledge 
and there was nothing between me and the swirling fall of 
one thousand feet to death but the sliding, treacherous slatey 
gravel under me. The crowding thoughts that rushed into my 
mind in that moment of despair! All these I have tried to 
write, but never could satisfactorily express, in my Alaska Days 
with John Muir. 

My mind has always had a curious twist to it that sometimes 
has made me smile when I should have wept. In this most 
awful moment of my life, I do not think I was frightened. In 
talking over with my wife and friends the feelings I experi- 
enced at that time, among the thoughts of wife, friends and 
unfinished duty, I mentioned several fancies that flashed into 
my mind and memory and which I did not record in my book. 
One which remained distinctly in my remembrances as one of 
the things I thought of in that moment was that absurd story 
of the optimistic Irishman, who when he was falling from the 
ninth story of a tall building remarked as he passed a friend 
in a window of the third story: “I am all right yet, Pat.” 

I have always felt that my description of my rescue by Muir 
on that cliff was feeble and inadequate compared with the real 
experience. Yet it has attracted more attention than any other 
of my writings. But of this adventure, which is the heart of 
two chapters of my book, Muir in his Travels in Alaska only 
says: 


“JT found the missionary face downward, his arms out- 
stretched, clutching little crumbling knobs on the brink of a 
gully that plunges down a thousand feet or more to a small 
residual glacier. He told me that both of his arms were dis- 
located. It was almost impossible to find available footholds 
on the treacherous rock, and I was at my wits’ end to know 
how to get him rolled or dragged to a place where I could get 


{ 


178 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


about him, find out how much he was hurt, and away back 
down the mountain. After narrowly scanning the cliff and 
making footholds, I managed to roll and lift him a few yards 
to a place where the slope was less steep, and there I attempted 
to set his arms.” 


That is all that the modest Muir says about the most impos- 
sible feat that ever man performed in the way of rescue of a 
comrade; for he had made his way down the sheer face of 
rock until, flattening himself against a cliff right out on the 
front of a precipice, with his feet on an inch-wide ledge, his 
head level with my waist, he grasped a crag of disintegrating 
rock with one hand, stretched out the other, gathered a handful 
of my clothes, and, when at a little shove I shot out into the 
air, he held me dangling in that hand, my head downward, 
my eyes staring at the glacier one thousand feet below; and by 
sheer strength crooked his elbow, swung my feet around until 
I could work downward and brace my heel between his foot 
and the precipice; he reached his long neck outward, caught 
me with his teeth by the collar of my vest, let go of my waist 
so as to use both hands, and scrambled up that rock as a cat 
carries her kitten by its neck, from fifteen or twenty feet to 
the ledge along which we had come. My throat fills and my 
heart throbs even now whenever my memory recurs to that 
moment. The miracle of it grows with the years. I can only 
say, “ It was impossible, but he did it.” 





XVII 


ORGANIZATION 


dates slip out of my mind much more easily than they 

come in. But the third of August, 1879, is one of my 
unforgettable dates. After all the expeditions, sightseeing, 
planning for the church and the new McFarland Home, feasts 
and counsels with the Indians, this was the day when we 
gathered up the riper fruits of two years’ seed-growing and 
organized the first Protestant church of Alaska. It was also 
the first American church of the Territory. No organization 
had been perfected previous to this in Alaska, except the old 
Russian Greek Church. 

From the first and with increasing strictness, we pursued the 
plan of putting the natives on probation for months and some- 
times for years before admitting them to baptism and com- 
munion. White communities with their Sunday Schools, prayer- 
meetings and churches, cannot fathom the depths of savage 
ignorance. Indeed even we, with some experience, were always 
shooting over their heads. 

But I had taken much pains for months with that little com- 
pany of faithful adherents, mostly of Tow-a-att’s family. There 
was the fine old chief himself, childlike and loyal; his wife Julia, 
with her sagging walk, the result of the hip dislocation at her 
birth. There were Matthew, Moses, Aaron, Lot, Koonk, 
Thomas and Kadishan, with their wives, and several others of 
the leading men and women, who had patiently met day after 
day for instruction and were in earnest. There were five whites 
who were charter members of this mother church—the three 
missionary leaders, Mrs. McFarland, Mrs. Young and Miss 

179 


\IGURES always have been hills of difficulty to me, and 


180 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Dunbar, and the two carpenters who were employed on the 
buildings. The women of the congregation, white and native, 
had made some effort to decorate with evergreens and flowers 
the low, rough log barracks building in which we held our 
meetings. Dr. Lindsley, who was commissioned for the pur- 
pose by the Presbytery of Oregon, to the jurisdiction of which 
this region belonged, presided at the organization; Dr. Ken- 
dall preached the sermon and Dr. Jackson assisted. 

Very sore and weak from my fearful adventure and with 
my arm in a sling, I conducted the preliminary examinations, 
administered baptism and. received the catechists into the 
Church. The house was crowded with wondering natives. 
Some who were unable to get seats or standing room were peer- 
ing in at the doors and windows and craning their necks down 
the staircase from the loft above. Our hearts shook with 
mingled exultation and trepidation. It was a triumph, but still 
an experiment. We were confident that it was the right thing 
to do, and yet were afraid. They were such babes of the 
Church! However, I wish to say this, that none of the original 
charter members of that church disgraced us by falling into 
sinful ways; and only three or four cases of discipline had to 
be tried in that number. 

Our visitors went away well pleased with the progress made 
in the mission, with the natives, with the interpreter, with the 
missionaries and with themselves. And, indeed, we were up- 
lifted in spirit, encouraged to buckle anew our harness and 
proceed with our multifold tasks. When the visiting delega- 
tion went up to Sitka on the next trip of the boat and then 
back to their homes and respective duties, they left a great 
impression upon the country. Here was the planting of a 
tree which was to spread its branches and produce its fruit in 
all parts of the great Territory. Here was an impression made 
that could not be effaced. We at Fort Wrangell rejoiced and 
took new courage. 





ORGANIZATION 181 


The buildings of the McFarland Industrial Home and of the 
church were hastened to completion and were occupied early 
in October; Dr. Corleis and his wife pursued their school in 
the Foreign Town, delegations from different tribes were in- 
terviewed and plans made for a survey of the whole Archi- 
pelago. Even the most heathen of the savages, such as old 
Kasch and Shustaak, showed interest in the mission. 

To my great joy, John Muir did not leave when the doctors 
of divinity did. He was there to study that wonderful Archi- 
pelago and the adjacent mainland. He went up to Glenora on 
the next trip of the ‘‘ Cassiar”” after my accident; and it was 
just like him to ascend again the mountain we had climbed, 
going clear to the summit this time, and not only to see the 
sun set but spend the night on the top to view the sun rise, 
as well, filling his mind and heart so full that when he re- 
turned the Vanderbilts and we found it difficult to eat our 
dinners or induce Muir to drink his coffee as he poured into 
our enraptured ears his wonderful descriptions. He was here 
and there, embracing every opportunity to visit the glaciers 
and the mountains, getting the Indians to ferry him to the 
mainland, and going alone through the forests and up to the 
snowy summits, writing, studying, never idle an hour and never 
silent a minute when he was with us. 

Many were the conferences in our home between Muir and 
me concerning our projected voyage. I was impatient to be 
gone on the visits to the other tribes which had been planned 
with our visitors of the summer and with the mission Board. 

“You are our explorer,” they said to me. “ You are the 
only one to visit all of these savage tribes, confer with their 
chiefs, report to the Board and the Church with a view to es- 
tablishing missions and schools among them. Just as soon as 
possible get a canoe and a crew of Indians and start.” 

The progress of our buildings and the presence of Dr. Cor- 
leis were loosening my feet so that I could start. Muir wished 


182 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


to explore the Archipelago and visit its highest mountains and 
its glaciers, a project which fitted in with mine, as he would 
like to visit the Indian tribes and I greatly desired to go with 
him to his beloved mountains, even though I was disabled from 
climbing them. We waited only until after the birth of my 
oldest child, which occurred September 19th. 

The birth of this baby was, not only in our mission circle 
but to the Indians of the town and territory, a very great event. 
As soon as the little tot could be carried we were invited to a 
big feast in the house of Shakes, ‘‘ our youngest and headest 
chief,” as he was called. There, throned in a chair of state 
on the highest platform, the young mother and her baby sat, 
while Shakes made a long speech, recalling the splendid quali- 
ties of his ancestors and especially of his mother, who had but 
recently gone to the realms of Sikagow. He brought a great 
bracelet of silver, almost large enough to encircle the infant, 
and wide enough to cover her whole torso, carved with figures 
of his totem, the Hoots (Brown Bear), which he gave to the 
baby as the most precious heirloom of the family. Then he 
formally bestowed upon her the name of his mother, ‘‘ Ahn- 
ooktch.” This name is not exactly translatable, but is the ex- 
clamation which visiting tribes were supposed to utter when 
passing in their canoes the totem poles and splendid houses of 
the old Stickeen town—‘ Ahn-town; ooktch-ah! ” meaning 
literally ‘“‘ Wonder at the Town”; translated by us to our 
friends as ‘“‘ The Wonder of the Town.” Shakes’ name for her 
was Uhklah and his first question when he would come to our 
house would be “‘ Goosoo Uhklah ” (Where is my mother? ). 

It was not until October 14th that we were able to start 
on the first of the many voyages that I was to make for ten 
years in Southeastern Alaska. I cannot better give my readers 
an idea of what canoeing meant in those days than by quot- 
ing from articles I wrote for Te New York Evangelist in those 
early days. Let me preface it by saying that the canoe was 


Se Se 





ee! 


ORGANIZATION 183 


absolutely the only mode of travel at that time in Southeastern 
Alaska, except the monthly visit of the little mail steamboat 
which only touched at Wrangell and Sitka. Eleven hundred 
islands, separated by wide channels of different widths, from 
thirty miles at the crossing of Prince Frederick Sound to the 
slender passages of Wrangell Narrows and Rocky Straits, 
where you can go only with the tide and where all care must 
be taken to avoid the dense, tangled fields of kelp. 

These canoes are of all sizes from the tippy one or two man 
canoe, fifteen feet long and just wide enough for a man to sit 
in it, to the great war canoe, sixty feet long with seven and one- 
half foot beam, the bow and stern reared high, the sides three 
or four feet above the water, two great sails and a crew of 
twelve to twenty strong men. The canoe we selected for our 
voyage was what is called a sixtlan (fathom) canoe, very light 
so that it could be readily carried ashore by four men. On 
my voyages I took from three to five natives to manage the 
canoe, two good sails and a pair or two of oars in addition to 
the paddles and tents for camping. Tight boxes were pro- 
cured for the provisions and goods, our own blankets and bags 
for the bedding and clothing, and a good tarpaulin or two to 
spread over all; for a good canoe is, as an old voyager told me, 
“the wettest and coldest place on earth.” 

Above all things, keep your blankets dry; for no matter how 
damp and chilly you get during the day, if you can drink a 
cup of strong hot coffee for supper, by a rousing camp-fire, 
and then roll yourself up in dry blankets under a tight tent— 
let the winds and waves roar and the rain fall; they will but 
lull you to that deep, dreamless sleep from whose blessed ~ 
chains you cannot escape till morning. But woe to him who 
has to shiver in wakeful misery under wet blankets! Warm 
flannel underwear, a good strong suit, a thick overcoat, a rub- 
ber coat, and high gum boots will insure comfort even in 
stormy weather. Should the cold penetrate all these defenses 


184 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


the remedy is simple—paddle. Comfort and rest are to be 
found not only as the result of work, but in it. 

Lay in more provisions than you think you will need. You 
may have to lie by some stormy point for a week waiting for 
the wind to change. Take guns and salmon spears to procure 
fresh meat, but do not rely too much upon them. Though 
game is very abundant, a haunch of venison in the pot is al- 
ways worth a good deal more than any in the woods; and with 
all the fresh meat you want you will be forlorn if your flour, 
beans, and bacon give out. 

The reader must remember how entirely green and inex- 
perienced both Muir and I were for such a voyage as we were 
about to undertake. Our previous trips were not in the least 
like this. Wind, rain and mist; rocky, sandy or pebbly 
beaches; thick carpets of moss under towering spruce and hem- 
lock; and on poles steaming blankets and clothing hung before 
a large fire underneath the fly tent. Venison, ducks, grouse or 
fish; cooking in frying-pan or kettle over the coals; wet dis- 
comfort, overcome by joyous health and the sense of achieve- 
ment. For a guide we had no charts whatever of the smaller 
channels. Vancouver’s old chart published in the first decade 
of the nineteenth century was all we had. Three-fourths of 
the smaller inlets, straits, points and islands were not indicated. 
Where great bays exist now there were only lines across, in- 
dicating a wall of ice. We had to make our own chart as we 
went along. 

Our crew was a choice one of picked men, one of whom was 
no other than our grand old Christian chief, Tow-a-att, whom 
we chose as our captain. His canoe was just right, and he 
was one of the most traveled and experienced natives in the 
Archipelago. He was full of the importance of his undertak- 
ing and eager to go along, even though he was warned that it 
would be at the peril of his life to visit tribes with which the 
Stickeens, and especially his family had been at war, the 





ORGANIZATION 185 


Hoochenoos, Chilcats and Auks. He answered these fearful 
prophecies with a smile. “I am going to take my missionary 
to these Indians and to tell them of the Man from Above who 
came to earth to die for us. Maybe these Indians kill me—all 
right. I go quick to Heaven.” 

But Tow-a-att’s wife was not so philosophical. She wept 
long and loudly, would not shake hands with her husband and 
kept exclaiming: ‘“ The Chilcats will kill him; they will kill 
him.” 

- I cannot better epitomize my feelings towards this finest of 
all the Indians I have ever known than by quoting the poem 
I wrote to head a chapter of my book on John Muir: 


TOW-A-ATT 


You are a child, Old Friend—a child! 
As light of heart, as free, as wild; 
As credulous of fairy tale; 

As simple in your faith, as frail 
In reason; jealous, petulant; 
As crude in manner; ignorant, 
Yet wise in love; as rough, as mild— 
You are a child. 


You are a man, Old Friend—a man! 
Ah, sure in richer tide ne’er ran 
The blood of earth’s nobility, 
Than through your veins; intrepid, free; 
In counsel, prudent; proud and tall; 
Of passions full, yet ruling all; 

No stauncher friend since time began; 


You are a MAN! 


Kadishan was the shrewdest and most diplomatic of the 
Stickeens. His face was pockmarked, with one eyelid partly 
eaten away, giving him the comical appearance of ex- 
ecuting a wink. He was a born after-dinner speaker and a 


186 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


master of metaphors, oily phrases and compliment. He had a 
never-failing fund of native legend, Indian lore, song and story. 
His family was the tribal custodian of the funeral songs and 
ceremonies, which must be executed after the death of every 
native of note. By temperament, as well as position, he was 
our peacemaker. His connection by blood on his father’s side 
with Shathitch, the head chief of the Chilcats, and by former 
treaties with the Tacoos, Hoochenoos and Kakes, gave him an 
added advantage. We took him along to introduce us, smooth 
the way for our interviews and initiate us into the mysteries 
of native diplomacy. 

Stickeen Johnny had the best knowledge of English of all the 
young men of the tribe. His experience while an inmate of the 
home of one of the first officers stationed at Fort Wrangell had 
made him a good cook and waiter, while his life as a boy had 
inured him to camping and hunting. 

Sitka Charlie, another strong young man, had a Sitka 
mother and a Hoonah father, and was thus related to two im- 
portant and powerful tribes. He was a good companion and 
well acquainted with the channels, passages and camping places 
of the northern part of the Archipelago. 

It was so late in the fall when we started that both whites 
and Indians tried their best to dissuade us from attempting the 
voyage. Prophecies of the storms, discomforts and general 
perils of such a trip at such a season fell from ali lips. 
Rumours of an impending war between the Chilcats and 
Hoonahs and the Hoochenoos and Stickeens were recounted. 

“Tf you come back alive from this trip,” said dry old Dick 
Willoughby, “TI will think that there is something in the care 
of Divine Providence.” 





XVITI 


A VOYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT 


fine canoe and its splendid crew, all gloomy fore- 

bodings left us. Muir and I were happy as children 
who were being ushered into a new and wonderful playhouse 
full of unknown toys. We sat together on the thwart of the 
bow, just back of the foremast, with paddles in our hands. 
Tow-a-att was perched in the high stern with his big steering 
paddle; Kadishan wielded his fancy paddle, while Charlie and 
Johnny were busy with their oars. Soon a breeze from the 
Stickeen caught us; the two square sails were spread and our 
craft cut rapidly through the water with a bone in her teeth. 

Our first objective was the Kake village, called Kluhkwan, 
on Kupreanof Island, sixty miles from Wrangell. We stopped 
for lunch at Vanks Island, ten miles from home. This initia- 
tion into camp life in Alaska was most pleasant. A good fire 
was quickly kindled, some beans from the large potful, cooked 
by Mrs. Young, were warmed in the frying-pan; coffee was 
made, and John soon prepared our table, if the moss log on 
which we sat and the lid of the camp kit could be called by 
that name. 

We had taken the advice of experienced campers, and let the 
natives provide their own food. Had we undertaken to feed 
them, they very soon would have cleaned out our larder. They 
had their own dried salmon, seal grease, sea biscuits and 
“fresh ” venison. We had our flour, beans, rice, sugar, pota- 
toes and other necessary food. 

Camping that night was typical of all the camps we were to 
make. First of all was choosing the spot. All of the camping 

187 


() NCE launched upon the waters of Etolin Bay with our 


188 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


places in that region were well known to our crew, and they 
would discuss the merits of the different camps as we traveled, 
and we would put in before sundown to the one which suited 
them best. This was sure to be some little cove or inlet where 
there was a good beach of sand or fine gravel, sheltered from 
probable winds. Our boxes and bags would be put ashore, and 
all hands ranged along the side of the canoe and it would be 
skidded or carried up into the woods above all possible tides. 
Then the natives would discuss the best place for pitching our 
tents. When John, Charlie and Kadishan had expressed their 
different opinions, old Tow-a-att would come up the beach 
with the small mast or the large sweep in his hand. He would 
march straight to the most likely place, sink his pole, and the 
others would mechanically acquiesce and put up the tents. 
There was always abundant driftwood in these coves—dry 
yellow and red cedar and Sitka spruce. We did not use the 
hemlock as it was sure to be heavy and soggy. 

We always found spruce trees which had been cut into by 
numerous axes, and the sap exuding had flooded the gash with 
pitch. This would be chopped off, and there was our fine 
kindling which would take fire instantly, even though soaked 
with rain. If it was wet weather one of the sails would be put 
up as a slanting fly tent fronting the fire. Our tent would be 
pitched near by under some big tree where there was a soft 
carpet of fine spruce and hemlock needles. Twigs would be 
cut and skilfully laid for our ‘‘ feather bed ” and our blankets 
spread over them. ‘Then the supper, eaten with that appetite 
which only campers in the open can appreciate. Nearly always 
there was a good clam beach and John and Charlie would bring 
us luscious bivalves; clams large and small, cockles, mussels, 
besides crabs and the long, succulent arms of the devil-fish. 
Then stories of Indian lore, Moody and Sankey hymns, 
alternating with Indian minor melodies, and we turned into our 
tents to that deep, dreamless sleep which only such voyagers 





A VOYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT 189 


can know. The lapping waves, the soft whispering of the wind 
in the trees, the stars “ singing together,” all formed Nature’s 
perfect lullaby. 

The morning always found us completely refreshed, spring- 
ing from our beds with every muscle ready and mind alert. 
Already my life of more than a year at Fort Wrangell had 
driven away my dyspepsia and nervous headache, and now all 
other physical ills were to vanish. As a contrast to my miser- 
able, puny, sickly existence heretofore, I was henceforth, to 
a close of a long life, to be a well man, able to eat large por- 
tions of everything and digest them. With the exception of 
that weak shoulder, which always had to be humoured and 
guarded, my body was entirely fit and responsive to all de- 
mands made upon it. I could do my full part in the work of 
the camp. 

Muir was a man of steel. He knew just what to do and 
how to do it. Again and again he and I played the game to 
see which could get water, make a fire and get a coffee-pot 
boiling quicker. The prize nearly always went to Muir. I 
have camped with many men but have never found his equal 
as a man of the wilderness. In addition to this aptness, there 
was that entrancing flood of words pouring forth from his lips 
in full stream as he was telling me strange and interesting 
things about the plants, the trees, the flowers, the birds and 
the whole round of Nature’s furnishings. He was a profound 
scholar, but not one of those introspective thinkers who keep 
their knowledge to themselves. He was eager to tell what he 
knew, and his only limit was the inferior capacity of his 
hearers to receive what he had to tell. 

I cannot tarry with the incidents of this wonderful voyage of 
upward of eight hundred miles. Muir has given the details in 
his Travels in Alaska, and I have sketched them inadequately 
in my Alaska Days with John Muir. My task now is to tell 
the missionary part of these voyages. 


190 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Three days, with intervals for hunting and finding shelter 
from too stormy winds, brought us along Summer Strait and 
through Rocky or Keku Strait, between Kupreanof and Kuiu 
Islands. So we came to the large Kake village. This had been 
the scene of the tragedy when the gunboat ‘“ Saginaw ” had 
steamed in front of the town, parleyed with the chiefs, and on 
their failure to comply with the demand to deliver up the 
murderers of the two white men, had opened fire, blown 
the houses to pieces, smashed the canoes, sent the natives 
scurrying into the woods, and, with blundering and indis- 
criminate vengeance had taught to the Kakes the danger of 
offending the government of the United States. The town had 
been rebuilt, but there were patches and gaping holes in many 
of the houses telling the story of the bombardment. 

This large village was almost deserted, as it was the season 
for the king salmon, and also the hunting season, and the men 
and nearly all the women were away at their various camps to 
lay in their food supply for the winter. We found that the 
tall, fine looking chief who had visited me at Fort Wrangell and 
deplored the imminent decline of his family, because there were 
no girls in it, was encamped at Saginaw Bay, named for the 
gunboat which had destroyed the town. Here we found a 
dozen or more men and their wives and children. At this and 
two other camps not far away we took the census of the Kake 
tribe, and found them to number some four hundred. 

I had learned the method of taking the census from some of 
the white men who had accompanied the United States of- 
ficials in their interviews with the tribes. I had bags of dif- 
ferent kinds of beans. I got the head of each family to count 
his kin and connections, place in piles the large brown beans 
to represent the men, the large white beans to represent the 
women and the small brown beans for the boys and girls. This 
method of taking the census was slow and laborious. Our 
interviews often lasted for hours, while with John to help I 





A VOYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT 191 


patiently gathered the statistics. But I think the data I col- 
lected were in the main correct. I pursued this method in my 
visits to all the Indian towns of the Archipelago during the 
years of 1879 and 1880. I compiled the information I ac- 
quired, wrote it in letters to our mission Board, and in 1880 I 
gave it to the census taker. 

A word about this census taker: Late in the year 1880 came 
Mr. Ivan Petrof, a Russian of education and prominence. He 
had been with ‘“ Fur Seal Elliott ” in his investigations of the 
seal rookeries of the Pribilof Islands, and had resided for 
some time at Kodiak. He received the appointment of census 
taker for Alaska from the government and had gathered some 
statistics from the traders and customs officials to the west- 
ward. He came to Sitka and on to Fort Wrangell late in 1880. 
By that time I had visited and collected data from all the four- 
teen different Thlingit tribes, with the exception of the Yaku- 
tats, and had visited the five villages of Hydas on Prince of 
Wales Island. Mr. Petrof learned that I had taken a rough 
census of the natives, and came to Fort Wrangell especially to 
see me. He stayed for several weeks at our town and enjoyed 
the hospitality of one of the merchants. He was known at 
Wrangell by the name of ‘“ Hollow Legs,” because of his un- 
limited capacity of absorbing whiskey and rum without the 
usual effects of such potations being visible. One of the men 
told me he “could drink all the rest under the table.” In- 
stead of visiting the tribes by canoe and by the revenue cutter 
himself, as he was supposed to do, he took my statistics and 
embodied them in his census report; and they were the only 
vital statistics shown in his report of that region to Washing- 
ton. He got a good round sum as census taker—got all the 
credit, and I got nothing for doing the work. However, I was 
not working for money, but was well repaid, in the progress of 
our missions, for this and every other phase of my labours. 

I found the Kakes very friendly and eager for a school and 


192 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


mission. Some of them had learned at our mission something 
of the first principles of Christianity, but the young men and 
especially the young women had received incomparably more 
of evil than of good from the soldiers and others at Fort Wran- 
gell. They were a rapidly vanishing tribe. 

The most dreaded crossisrg of our whole voyage was from 
Security Bay on Kuiu Island, across Prince Frederick Sound 
to Point Gardner, the extreme southern point of Admiralty Is- 
land. The dreaded passage, which had been discussed with 
apprehension by our crew ever since we started, was fortu- 
nately made speedily and safely with the aid of a fair wind. 

Once in Chatham Strait, we could find shelter everywhere, 
and when winds arose we could speedily run into sheltered 
coves and harbours. Now we were in the country of the most 
feared and hated tribe, the Hoochenoos. The correct spell- 
ing of that name is “‘ Hootznoo,” meaning Brown Bear Fort; 
and there are yet to be seen remains of a stockade on an island 
in Kotzebue Inlet near the town of Angoon. This was the 
famous fort used in the frequent battles of that tribe with other 
tribes. Many stories of massacres and sieges were told by our 
natives concerning this fort; but the fort and the tribe have 
received a disgraceful immortality from the fact that the 
Hoochenoo Indians, first of all the tribes, learned from the sol- 
diers how to make rum from molasses; and this was called 
‘“‘ Hoochenoo ” and later shortened to “ hooch,” and now ap- 
plied to all kinds of home-brew. | 

There were three towns, Neltushkin, Killisnoo and Angoon. 
At Neltushkin we found about thirty natives, living in two 
large community houses and staying peacefully at home while 
their tribal relatives were reveling at Angoon. The chief, who 
was a man about fifty years old, received us and our message 
most hospitably. His wife presided with a dignity and ease I 
have seldom seen equaled. After my usual potlatch of to- 
bacco to prepare the way for a powwow, they, in turn, gave 





A VOYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT 193 


us some freshly killed venison, and we spent a pleasant night 
there lying in our blankets on mattresses composed of a num- 
ber of Hudson’s Bay blankets. 

It was sixty miles or more from the Hoochenoos to the next 
tribe north, which was the Hoonahs. These occupied two vil- 
lages on opposite sides of the Icy-Straits. The northern and 
smaller village was on the mainland, some fifteen miles from 
Point Céuverden, the chief town being on a fine harbour on 
Chichagof Island, ten miles from the other village. We received 
alarming news at this northern town. My chief objective and 
the point I was most anxious to reach was the Chilcat tribe 
near the north end of Lynn Canal. The Hoonahs had learned 
that there was a war raging between two families of the Chil- 
cats. They strongly advised us not to risk our lives by going 
to the Chilcats at present. Therefore, I being anxious to visit 
the Hoonahs and their chief village, and Muir being desirous 
of visiting the great “Icy Bay,” we bade farewell to the few 
natives in the northern town and landed, two days from An- 
goon, at the large town of Hoonah. 

When we rounded into the beautiful harbour, we saw the 
American flag floating from its pole in front of the largest 
house, and we immediately responded by hoisting our mission 
flag at the mast. And our Indian crew changed their garments, 
putting on their “‘ Sunday best.” Two or three hundred natives 
were on the beach. 

On landing, we were greeted by the chief, Kashoto, who 
made us a formal speech of welcome with the usual de- 
preciatory remarks about his poverty and the meanness of his 
house for entertaining such distinguished guests. Our response 
reassured him: ‘“‘ We would be honoured to abide with him.” 
Then, with compliments and a pleasant smile, he led the way 
to his house. There we were ushered into the presence of his 
three wives and the men of the family. Our canoe was emptied 
by his followers and carried up the beach beyond the tide. A 


194 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


big fire was made in the center of the room, and the people 
began to gather in for the customary reception. 

I had Charlie and Johnny give to the chiefs first, and then 
to all the principal people, gifts of leaf tobacco; I measured out 
a cup of sugar and gave it to the chief; then we composed our- 
selves in our allotted places. The chief regretted that he had 
no “ Boston food” for us, but gave our cook a large loin of 
venison, and the whole tribe, as many as could gather into the 
large house, watched the process of preparing our lunch and 
eating it. 

I delivered the customary Christian speech, talking as I 
would to the primary class of a Sunday School at home, and 
explained in simplest words the Gospel message. I expressed 
a wish to hear whether they wanted to receive the Gospel, to 
have teachers and missionaries sent to them and to make 
progress towards being real Christian men and women. Muir, 
Tow-a-att and Kadishan followed with their speeches, and then 
the chief and all the head men and some of the women ex- 
pressed themselves. After the speeches I got the chief to as- 
semble the heads of the different families and we spent a couple 
of hours enumerating the people and getting what statistics 
from them we could. Our count showed some seven hundred 
and twenty-five persons in the tribe. We found the Hoonahs 
about the most receptive of all of the Alaskans; and this was 
the beginning of what has been one of the finest and largest 
of our Alaska missions. The joy of being the first to bring 
the Word of Life to a large tribe was burning more and more 
warmly in my heart, and my natives were catching the fire. 

Before retiring for the night, Muir had asked many ques- 
tions about the mysterious and unknown “ Bay of Ice ” to the 
northwest. None of our crew, not even Charlie, had ever 
been farther in that direction than we were now. The Hoonahs 
seemed reluctant to have us explore this unknown region and 
told us fearful stories of the terrors that lined the way. They 





A VOYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT 195 


told of great masses of floating icebergs and the danger that 
they would turn over on our canoe, smash it and drown us in 
the icy waters. They told of other dangers which brought a 
smile to our faces, but were very real to them and to our crew. 
The great devil-fish in a secluded bay, with arms longer than 
our canoe and studded with hundreds of strong suckers, lay 
ready to wrap those arms around our canoe and ourselves and 
drag us down to be mangled and devoured by the great parrot 
beak. They told of the rushing tides which would cause our 
destruction. All of these terrors were controlled and directed 
by malignant spirits who were especially inimical to strangers 
and to white men. Although Muir and I made light of these 
imaginary dangers, our Stickeens were impressed by them. 
Old Tow-a-att called John and told him to ask us whether God 
wished us to lose our lives in this terrible passage, or whether 
He would rather we should go back to the Stickeens who loved 
us and who were always glad to listen to our words. 

“You will find no natives up there in that terrible country,” 
he said. “ There is nothing there to see except ice and moun- 
tains; there is no gold, no game, no furs. It will simply be a 
kultus koly (purposeless journey). Better turn back and go 
to the tribes where you can do something worth while.” 

But when we persisted, he smiled and said: “ Ah, well, I 
am with you, whatever you want to do. Far better I die with 
you among the ice than go back home full of shame without 
you.” 

We found an experienced seal hunter, a sub-chief of the 
Hoonahs, who was willing to guide us for a small wage. And 
the next morning, full of explorer’s enthusiasm and hope, we 
steered the canoe towards the then unknown “ Glacier Bay.” 


XIX 


THE GREAT DISCOVERY 


from the hospitable town of Hoonah, steering across 
Icy Straits towards a wooded island some fifteen miles 
distant. Here we were told we must take on board our canoe 
. a supply of wood, as we were entering an entirely treeless bay, 
and would be for a week or more without fuel, except such as 
we could take along with us. The heavy, fresh forest on this 
island with its supply of young trees gave us such an impres- 
sion of welcome and comfort that I named it “ Pleasant Is- 
land.” Cruising along its shores we found on its western end 
an ideal camp—a deep cove set into the island, with sheltering 
hills on either side and a sloping beach of white sand on which 
we could haul up our canoe. Here we spent the afternoon in 
accumulating our supply of dry spruce wood. The axes rang 
merrily with the sturdy strokes of John and Charlie and the 
new guide. In the morning, with every available space piled 
with fuel, we steered towards the treeless and bushless point. 
On the hither side of this point was a small inlet with a stream 
of icy water and a few shrubs, with some driftwood on the 
shore. From a small Indian house issued a wisp of smoke; and 
when we came within hailing distance there suddenly appeared 
an Indian with blackened face, gun in hand. He fired a shot 
over our heads, and in a gruff voice shouted: “ Goosoo 
ewhan? ” (Who are you? Why did you come here? Where 
are you going?) 
John answered, ‘“ We are your friends, and the missionary 
from Fort Wrangell is with us.” 
Then came out of the hut some fifteen or twenty men, women 
196 


O UITE early on the morning of October 24th we set sail 





; 
4 


THE GREAT DISCOVERY 197 


and children—the men with guns in their hands. Kadishan, 
who knew when to be blandly conciliatory and when to put on 
an appearance of anger, rebuked the men for coming armed, 
asking them, “ Have you no shame? Do you come to meet 
God’s man of peace with guns?” After a little parley the un- 
friendly faces broke into smiles and we were welcomed into 
the hut. These were the friends of our Hoonah guide and 
among them was his wife. They were seal hunters and the 
house was well stored with the stretched and dried skins of the 
leopard seal, and also with mountain goat pelts, and various 
kinds of furs. At our guide’s command, his wife brought him 
supplies of dried salmon, seal grease and goat meat. When we 
put off from this settlement, the guide’s wife said with a smile: 
“ This is my husband, and I love him very much. Be sure you 
bring him back to me.” 

We left some of our heavier provisions in this house to 
lighten our load, so that we would be enabled to battle the 
strong winds and icebergs. Right here, let me give the 
Thlingits credit for absolute honesty so far as caring for a 
stranger’s property is concerned. In all my travels in South- 
eastern Alaska for ten years, although I frequently left just 
such goods as these people would covet—ammunition, flour, 
sea biscuits, beans, rice and sugar—I never missed an 
article on my return to claim my goods; everything was given 
back exactly as it was left. Indeed, the only goods we ever 
had stolen from us were some we entrusted to a white sailor 
who had deserted from a gunboat and was going to one of our 
Southern missions. The goods we sent by him to these mis- 
sions were never heard of again. 

Glacier Bay was not on Vancouver’s chart. We had no 
description or sketch of it. So far as we were able to ascer- 
tain, no white man had ever penetrated these forbidding wilds. 
A heavy mist obscured the mountains; the tide was out, and a 
multitude of icebergs of all sizes, from the antlered fragments 


198 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


of bottle green to the solid house-like blue berg, floated all 
around us, and were soon to march with us northward up the 
mysterious bay. We did not then realize that we were explor- 
ing for the first time the most wonderful bay for natural 
scenery in all the earth, and that it fell to our lot to unfold this 
wonder to an admiring world. 

When the mist lifted sufficiently for us to get our bearings, 
we saw a new kind of world; gray granite shoulders to the left, 
sometimes smooth and polished as a granite monument, some- 
times broken and striated by the steel-like ice rubbing hard 
across them and chiseling and grooving them as by a giant 
plane. Small islands, conical, pyramidical or with low, rounded 
tops, sprung up here and there as we progressed. This open- 
ing and that on either side invited us to explore it, but our 
guide, after we had rounded Point Gustavus, steered right in 
the middle of the channel to get the heaviest current and we 
were fairly launched into what we called Glacier Bay. All the 
islands, points, inlets, glaciers and mountains of this great bay 
—then sixty miles long and now more than ninety, were name- 
less at that time. We gave the names that are now on the 
chart. Muir, the scientific member of the party, named the 
glaciers and most of the inlets, while I named many of the 
islands and points. 

But what a week it was! Muir had a good pocket compass 
with him, as well as a barometer for measuring heights. We 
estimated distances by our rate of travel. Muir’s pencil was 
busy sketching the inlets, points and mountains, and we were 
constantly tracing shore lines and islands in our sketch books, 
with many an erasure and amendment as we traveled. We 
soon began to discover the glaciers which had produced these 
armies of icebergs which were thickening about us. About 
noon of this day of exploration we discovered the first of the 
many great glaciers, belonging in what is called first class; that 
is, those which come down to the sea and break off bergs. 





THE GREAT DISCOVERY 199 


The first glacier Muir named the “ Geike Glacier,” for James 
Geike, the noted Scotch geologist. It gave an impression of 
tremendous power and unfeeling sternness to me; but to Muir 
a glacier was always the friendliest thing in the world; a great 
tool in the hands of an experienced and almighty Landscape 
Gardener. This tool was wielded in kindness to shape the world 
and prepare it for the abode of man. The work the glacier did 
was a labour of love, and its stern aspect, its roaring voices, its 
immense masses breaking off into bergs, its relentless march 
through the mountains as it carved out its own valleys, were to 
him the products, not only of infinite intelligence but of a kind 
and loving heart. I could not see them in that light, although 
Muir was gradually winning me over to his viewpoint. He 
understood a glacier; I did not. 

It was Saturday afternoon when we ran into a little harbour, 
that had a good beach, and made our Sunday camp. Muir was 
always impatient about these frequent campings. As an In- 
dian expressed it, “‘ Muir was always hungry for ice.” To 
camp in a dull, uninteresting cove when we might be seeing 
majestic heights and wonderful glaciers was to him absurd. 
He was always longing to see what was beyond. The guide 
would say: ‘“‘ We must camp here because there is no harbour 
beyond that is safe; and we will be caught in the ice and 
perhaps lose our lives among the bergs.”’ I would insist that 
the guide knew the country while we did not, and that we 
should take his opinion at all times. Muir would reluctantly 
give in, grumbling and accusing the natives of cowardice. In 
the morning after an enforced encampment of this kind, when 
he would discover what we would have encountered in the 
dark, he would acknowledge that the Indian was right. But 
he would never acknowledge it beforehand. If we had taken 
his judgment as to camps, as Kadishan sagely remarked, “‘ We 
all would have had our bones picked by the wolves and the 
devil-fish.” 


x 


200 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


I cannot here give in detail the account of the great week at 
Glacier Bay. Muir has done that to perfection in his now 
classic book. Every point we rounded unfolded to us a new 
surprise. There were no disappointments during that week, 
unless we except the almost constant clouds of fog that en- 
veloped us and cut off the view of the mountains. But when 
these would roll back and the whole landscape would burst 
upon our enraptured vision, we felt that after all this was the 
way to see and enjoy the scenery. It was like a stereopticon 
lecture with the views flashing rapidly upon us, while the voice 
of the Almighty, describing and commenting upon them, spoke 
in the thunder of the icebergs. 

For the sake of our Christian influence I always insisted on 
camping over the Sabbath. Muir combated this, saying that 
we would far better keep the Lord’s Day by flying before the 
winds He sent, and hearing what He had to say to us, than by 
staying in a cove where we could see nothing of interest. I 
now believe he was right, and had I the trip to make over 
again, I would think no more of canoeing on Sunday than of 
hitching up my horse and driving to church when I was in 
charge of a country congregation. 

We camped that Sunday in a small cove beyond the narrow 
entrance to the Geike Glacier. Muir rose as soon as it was 
daylight, took a bite of breakfast, stuffed some sea biscuits in 
his pocket and I did not see him again until nightfall. He 
must have traveled twenty miles or more that day over those 
rugged steeps, climbing to the height of two or three thousand 
feet. Whenever the clouds lifted he would make haste to 
ascend some commanding height to obtain a full view. When 
he returned he had so much to tell me, and his words poured 
forth so rapidly in entrancing descriptions, that it was an hour 
or two before I could induce him to finish his beans and coffee. 

And so it was for the whole ensuing week. Every day we 
would find rain or snow clouds and mist alternating with sun- 





THE GREAT DISCOVERY 201 


shine. The mighty Pacific Glacier at the extreme end of the 
fiord, the Hugh Miller, Hoonah, Reid, Rendu and Queen 
Glaciers, each having its own peculiar story to tell, passed in 
review aS we made our way delicately among the thick float- 
ing icebergs. Frequently our Hoonah guide would flatly re- 
fuse to go farther in certain directions, saying that it would 
be almost sure death to enter these passages. At night we 
would generally camp on bare rocks, for there are very few 
gravel beaches in that bay. We would pick up our canoe and 
perch it high above the tides, while we would pile boulders 
around our tent pole to keep it steady as there was no soil in 
which to plant it. We would spread our blankets on these bare 
rocks, sometimes having difficulty in finding a place large 
enough and level enough on which to stretch our bodies. The 
rain and snow would beat in our faces; the wind would wreck 
our tents; our Indians would grumble and fill our ears with 
dire forebodings; but we were lifted up in spirit far beyond 
the power of mere discomfort or danger to dampen our ardour. 
Muir was a great poet, although he never, so far as I am aware, 
put his thoughts into verse, but his prose is as poetic as that of 
Isaiah and Habakkuk. 

One glorious night when the clouds parted and the moon, 
almost at the full, showered the mountains and glaciers with 
silver light, I ascended an eminence fifteen hundred or two 
thousand feet above our camp, and communed with God and 
His wondrous world for two or three hours, until the clouds 
returned and the “ silent music of the night ” was hushed. It 
was there I made my poem, “A Night in Glacier Bay,” of 
which Muir pronounced this the best verse: 


T hose everlasting snowfields are not cold; 
This icy solitude no barren waste. 

The crystal masses burn with love untold; 
The glacier-table spreads a royal feast. 


202 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


It was after two or three days spent in exploring the northern 
reaches of Glacier Bay that the wonderful climax of the trip 
burst suddenly upon us. A sunrise so unique and so glorious 
that Muir said: ‘ There was never anything like this before in 
all the world.”’ Muir published his account of that wonderful 
morning in a San Francisco paper, while I wrote my descrip- 
tion, as a part of my first article of the series, ‘‘ The Gospel 
by Canoe,” for the New York Evangelist. They came out 
about the same time, without either of us knowing that the 
other had written a description of that scene. Dr. Henry M. 
Field, who was the editor of the Evangelist and himself an 
author of note, displaced his series of travel articles from the 
first column of the first page of the paper and inserted my 
story: 


Early that morning we quitted our camp on a barren rock, 
steering towards Mount Fairweather. A- night of sleepless 
discomfort had ushered in a bleak gray morning. Our Indians 
were sullen and silent, their scowling looks resenting our relent- 
less purpose to attain to the head of the bay. The air was 
damp and raw, chilling us to the marrow. The forbidding 
granite mountains, showing here and there through the fog, 
seemed suddenly to push out threatening fists and shoulders at 
us. All night long the ice-guns had bombarded us from four 
or five directions, when the great masses of ice from living 
glaciers toppled into the sea, crashing and grinding with the 
noise of thunder. The granite walls hurled back the sound in 
reiterated peals, multiplying its volume a hundred fold. 

There was no Love apparent on that bleak, gray morning: 
Power was there in appalling force. We could not enjoy; we 
could only endure. Death from overturning icebergs, from 
charging tides, from mountain avalanches, threatened us. 

Suddenly I heard Muir catch his breath with fervent ejacu- 
lation. ‘God, Almighty! ” he said. Following his gaze to- 
wards Mount Crillon, I saw the summit highest of all crowned 
with glory indeed. It was not sunlight; there was no appear- 
ance of shining; it was as if the Great Artist with one sweep of 





THE GREAT DISCOVERY 203 


His brush had laid upon the king-peak of all a crown of the 
most brilliant of all colours—as if a pigment, perfectly made 
and thickly spread, too delicate for crimson, too intense for 
pink, had leaped in a moment upon the mountain top; “an 
awful rose of dawn.” The summit nearest Heaven had caught 
a glimpse of its glory. It was a rose blooming in ice-fields, a 
love-song in the midst of a stern epic, a drop from the heart of 
Christ upon the icy desolation and barren affections of a sin- 
frozen world. It warmed and thrilled us in an instant. We 
who had been dull and apathetic a moment before, shivering 
in our wet blankets, were glowing and exultant now. Even 
the Indians ceased their paddling, gazing with faces of awe 
upon the wonder. Now, as we watched the kingly peak, we 
saw the colour leap to one and another and another of the 
snowy summits around it. The monarch had a whole family 
of royal princes about him to share his glory. Their radiant 
heads, ruby crowned, were above the clouds, which seemed to 
form their silken garments. 

As we looked in ecstatic silence we saw the light creep down 
the mountains. It was changing now. The glowing crimson 
was suffused with soft, creamy light. If it was less divine, it 
was more warmly human. Heaven was coming down to man. 
The dark recesses of the mountains began to lighten. They 
stood forth as at the word of command from the Master of all; 
and as the changing mellow light moved downward that won- 
derful colosseum appeared clearly with its battlements and 
peaks and columns, until the whole majestic landscape was 
revealed. 

Now we saw the design and purpose of it all. Now the 
text of this great sermon was emblazoned across the landscape, 
“ God is Love” ; and we understood that these relentless forces 
that had pushed the molten mountains heavenward, cooled 
them into granite peaks, covered them with snow and ice, 
dumped the moraine matter into the sea, filling up the sea, 
preparing the world for a stronger and better race of men 
(who knows?) were all a part of that great “all things ” that 
“work together for good.” 

Our minds cleared with the landscape; our courage rose; 
our Indians dipped their paddles silently, steering without fear 
amidst the dangerous masses of ice. But there was no pro- 


204 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


fanity in Muir’s exclamation, “ We have met with God!” A 
lifelong devoutness of gratitude filled us, to think that we 
were guided into this most wonderful room of God’s great 
gallery, on perhaps the only day in the year when the skies 
were cleared, and the sunrise, the atmospheric conditions and 
the point of view all prepared for the matchless spectacle. The 
discomforts of the voyage, the toil, the cold and rain of the 
past weeks were a small price to pay for one glimpse of its 
surpassing loveliness. Again and again Muir would break out, 
after a long silence of blissful memory, with exclamations: 
‘““'We saw it; we saw it! He sent us to His most glorious 
exhibition. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow! ” 


On our way back from this mass of icy glaciers, far up the — 
bay we passed the greatest of all the glaciers, to which, at my 
suggestion, Captain Beardslee of the gunboat ‘‘ Jamestown,” 
gave Muir’s name, when after our second and more extended 
trip to that finest of glaciers, we went to Sitka; we gave our 
“ guess chart ” to the officers, who sent it to Washington. But 
this time we could not, on account of the approaching winter 
and the fierce snowstorms that were arising, land by the Muir 
Glacier and explore it. 

Let me say here, as an illustration of the neglect on the part 
of the government of this most wonderful of all fiords, that our 
chart, sketched and penciled as we floated along and published 
in Washington just as we made it, was for fifteen or twenty 
years the only sailing chart of Glacier Bay. It was, of course, 
inaccurate in many details; inlets, rocks and islands were un- 
marked in it; we made no soundings, no triangulations and no 
chain measurements—we guessed. Excursion steamers. using 
our chart discovered new rocks by running upon them. 

But our glory is that we discovered and gave to the world 
“ Glacier Bay,” and made possible the visit to this great region 
of thousands of enthusiastic and appreciative tourists. Yet 
more than half of this bay is still unexplored and uncharted. 


AVd WAIOVID NI CGaYaHAOOSIG YAIOVID LSADAVI AHL 


YaIOVIS ANN 








XX 


THE NORTHERN TRIBES 


HILE the main objective of Muir’s voyage was 

\ V Glacier Bay, mine was the Chilcat tribe. Our run 

up the long, narrow channel, called Lynn Canal, was 
alternated with southerly winds that bowled us ahead ten or 
twelve miles an hour, and a north wind which the Indians 
called hoon and which forced us to poke along the shores, 
taking advantage of sheltering points and favouring tides and 
eddies. It took us some five days of very hard work to travel 
from Glacier Bay to the country of the Chilcats. Varying 
reports picked up at the different camps we passed alternately 
aroused our fears that there would be war and violence when 
we reached their country, or said all was quiet and we would 
be well received. 

It was the first week in November when we made a careful 
toilet, our Indians putting on their best clothes in honour of 
those whom we were about to visit, while Muir and I, not hav- 
ing extra suits with us, contented ourselves with the display 
of our flag. We left our camp on an island opposite the beauti- 
ful Davidson Glacier, paddled past the conical island which 
gives its name to Pyramid Harbour and approached the delta 
of the Chilcat River. A long narrow peninsula divides the 
northern part of. Lynn Canal into two prongs. We took the 
westward of these, the country of the Chilcats. The people 
who inhabit the eastern prong are called “ Chilcoots,” although 
really belonging to the same tribe. 

It was towards noon of the same day that we paddled into 
the main channel of the Chilcat River, skirting the shore and 
steering towards the large town of Yindestukki. Our large 

205 


206 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


canoe, well manned, with the American flag floating from the 
mast, gave notice of a visit of ceremony. Doubtless natives at 
many camps we had passed on our way north had conveyed 
the news of our coming. As soon as we got within musket-shot 
of the town, we saw a great commotion in the village. Men 
were running to and fro and finally we saw them massed in 
front of the largest community house. The winding channel 
approaching within a half mile of the town brought suddenly 
from this little army of natives, who had guns in their hands, a 
volley which was either a challenge or a salute as we chose to 
interpret it. A shower of bullets splashed unpleasantly near 
our canoe. Kadishan allayed our fears by saying this was 
simply a friendly volley of inquiry to find out who we were 
and what was the reason for our coming. ‘Therefore, slowly 
amid the falling bullets, we paddled towards the shore. A 
line of men came running down the beach, the foremost shout- 
ing out the customary salute, “ Goosoo wa-eh?” (Who are 
your). 

The answer was shouted back: ‘A preacher chief and ice 
chief coming to give you a good word.” 

This answer was relayed along the line to the chief, who 
returned an invitation to us to be his guests. Slowly we 
paddled ahead, questions and answers alternating, until the 
bow of our canoe touched the shore in front of Chief Don- 
nawuk’s house. ‘The men with guns had disappeared, but now 
they came rushing from behind and within the chief’s house 
with shouts as if of rage—‘ Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo,” and with 
violent gestures as if they were going to capture us. Some 
twenty of them, divided into two ranks, ran right into the 
shallow river, ranged alongside of our canoe and at a signal 
swung it up on their shoulders and brought us to the door of 
Donnawuk’s house, where the canoe was set down and motions 
made that we should alight. Boys were stationed by our canoe 
with stones to drive off the many Indian dogs that were making 





THE NORTHERN TRIBES 207 


a rush towards our dried salmon, whose enticing odours at- 
tracted them. We were ushered with all ceremony into the 
presence of the old chief, who sat, or rather squatted, on a 
blanket at the far end of the room. After short complimentary 
speeches on both sides the chief announced that if we would 
accept it he would give us a feast. We gladly acquiesced. 

A young man who had been to Fort Wrangell and Port Simp- 
son and Victoria and had learned something of the ceremonies 
held there, was the master of the occasion. He consulted 
Stickeen Johnny quite frequently, and between them they did 
the feast up in great style. Muir and I, as guests of honour, 
were seated on the chieftain’s right and left, then Kadishan and 
Tow-a-att next to us, while John and Charlie were to act as our 
servants. The old chief wore his great emblem of authority— 
a pair of huge silver-bowed spectacles. These gave him his 
name—Donnawuk (Silver-eye), ‘‘ Donna” being as near as the 
natives could pronounce the word “ dollar.”’ The glasses had 
been presented to the chief at a great feast by a Russian officer. 
Donnawuk could not see through them, and had to lay them 
aside whenever he wished to inspect us or anything we had. 
But when making his speech he had them on, doubtless think- 
ing they lent dignity to his countenance. 

It was dark before the speech-making began. Rumours of 
our presence had gone to the other two villages on Pyramid 
Harbour and to the Chilcoot village, and soon we had men 
from all of these places. Donnawuk’s house was large, about 
fifty feet square, two platforms running clear around the 
building, and the great beams which supported the rafters of 
the roof were fully two feet in diameter. Before the council 
opened there were over two hundred blanketed Indians within 
the house, and as it progressed more came until the room was 
crowded to suffocation. 

The chief made his speech of welcome. He knew very little 
of white men, he said, but acknowledged that they were all 


208 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


very wise and powerful. ‘‘ You are all great and wise chiefs, 
and we know very little, but are hungry to hear what you have 
to say. Weare proud to be ‘ Boston men’ and not Russians.” 

The flowery metaphors were much the same as those uttered 
by our Stickeens at the councils at Wrangell and by the chiefs 
of all the tribes we had visited. “A dark night, a canoe, a 
trip in the storm without paddle or sail, men lost, starving and 
in danger; then a light, a sheltered harbour, food and comfort; 
the usual round of compliments.” 

I had often experienced the joy of being the first to bring 
the Christian message to the tribes, but never felt it quite so 
keenly as at Yindestukki. As I talked, people came crowding 
more and more into the room. I heard a cracking sound; they 
were tearing off the hewn planks that formed the sides of the 
building and were listening through the apertures. Heads 
appeared even around the smoke-hole on the roof, eager to 
hear what we had to say. When I had finished, cries would 
come, “Go on, go on. A good word, a new word, tell us 
more.” And here, as always, the message that kept them and 
held them motionless and avid was the Great Message of the 
‘““ Man who came from Heaven to die for us.” 

Muir, and then Kadishan and Tow-a-att followed. The old 
chief was among enemies, and could see unfriendly glances 
from one and another of the Chilcats; he could see them talk- 
ing together and gesturing towards him; but his speech was a 
model of kindliness and diplomacy. Its theme was the brother- 
hood and mutual helpfulness that came with the Gospel mes- 
sage. ‘“ We are not different tribes,” he said. ‘‘ We are one 
family. God is our father; Mr. Young and Mr. Muir are our 
brothers. No one is better than the other. All are equal. All 
remembrance of former hurts and anger and war is wiped out 
by this new Word. Let us be at peace. If I have offended 
any Chilcat, I ask his pardon.” 

The end of the feast was a fitting climax. The largest village 


: 
‘ 
: 
’ 
4 
j 





THE NORTHERN TRIBES 209 


of the Chilcats was Klukwan, which was situated some twenty 
miles or more up the Chilcat River. It was the largest and 
most celebrated town in the Archipelago. The head chief had 
a great reputation for wealth and power and also for pride and 
cruelty. His name was Shathitch, a name which has been 
anglicized into Shortridge and is proudly possessed by many 
civilized or partly tamed people of the tribe to this day. The 
name “ Shathitch,” as nearly as it can be translated, means 
“ Hard-to-kill,’ intimating that this man of many battles, 
though scarred, was still alive and defiant. He was on a visit 
of state to Yindestukki, and there had been feasting before 
our arrival. We had inquired about him and sent word that 
we would like to see him. He kept us waiting for three or 
four hours. 

It was verging towards our bedtime when the message came 
that Shathitch was about to pay us a visit of state. The 
word was passed, a passageway cleared to the door, and there 
came stalking into the room the old chief of all the Chilcats. 
He looked neither to the right nor to the left as he advanced 
slowly up to Donnawuk, shook his hand and then politely 
shook hands with Muir and me and with Kadishan, passing 
by old Tow-a-att, and seated himself on the blankets which 
Donnawuk had assigned to him. He was dressed in his robe 
of state, an elegant chinchilla blanket. He turned around in 
order that we might read the inscription on the surface of his 
robe, and to our surprise we saw printed in black on the yellow 
the words, “ To Chief Shathitch, from his friend, Wm. H. 
Seward.” We learned afterwards that the great Secretary of 
State on his visit to Alaska, soon after its purchase, had visited 
the Chilcats, and on his return had sent this blanket as a 
present and mark of his appreciation. 

For three days we abode at Yindestukki. Shathitch re- 
turned to his town the day after our arrival, and reports came 
of drunken feasts up at the large village. But the reason for 


210 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Shathitch’s speedy return was that the weather had turned so 
cold that ice was forming in the Chilcat River, and he was in 
danger of being blockaded and prevented for weeks from re- 
turning home. Our plans of visiting Klukwan were shattered 
by the same weather conditions; but before Shathitch left, he 
and Donnawuk and Skundoo-oo, the chief and /ht of Chilcoot, 
walked with me across the neck of the peninsula to a harbour 
on the east side. I had offered them a missionary and teachers, 
and had told them of our intention of building a new Christian 
town where they could speedily learn the white man’s ways 
and Christian habits and where their children could be edu- 
cated as Boston men and women. I asked them to name a 
place where we could build this new town. They selected 
this harbour, and I formally took possession of it. The follow- 
ing summer I sent Mrs. Dickinson there, with a supply of 
school books and Testaments, and had her commissioned as a 
missionary teacher. Her husband had been appointed by a 
newly organized company of traders as their storekeeper at 
Haines. 

This mission has been in existence ever since and has been 
very prosperous. The tract of ground I selected and which I 
stepped off on my next visit covered about five hundred and 
forty acres. It is now recognized as the best farming tract in 
Southeastern Alaska, and there are raised the largest and 
finest strawberries in the world, besides splendid vegetables, 
grains and even apples and cherries’ Afterwards part of the 
tract was deeded to the war department, and Fort William H. 
Seward was built upon it. When the Klondike boom peopled 
that country with eager gold seekers, a good-sized white man’s 
town was built. We established a mission at Klukwan up the 
river, and many of the Chilcats have risen to considerable 
prominence. One of them, a member of the Shortridge family, 
was for many years employed in the museum of the University 
of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, and he collected great num- 





THE NORTHERN TRIBES 211 


bers of old stones, copper and wooden implements and curios 
for the ethnological department of that university. 

I count my visit to the Chilcats as one of the most important 
and fruitful of all my visits to the different tribes. These 
people had a dreaded name throughout Alaska. Their fierce 
warriors captured hundreds of slaves from the tribes of the 
south, and many of these had been sacrificed after the old 
custom. Donnawuk himself, during this first visit, was waited 
upon assiduously by a good looking slave girl about eighteen 
or twenty years of age, whom he treated more as one of the 
family than as a slave. Donnawuk had three wives, only one 
of whom, a very old and wrinkled crone, was present at the 
time. When our mission was fully established, Donnawuk, 
although he never learned to read, and could not go far in his 
knowledge of Christianity, became and remained a devout 
Christian, always friendly and delighted with the progress of 
his people. 

Let me tell here a story concerning Muir, which has never 
been published. After his death, when I wrote my’ book 
Alaska Days with John Muir, I sent a copy of it to John Bur- 
roughs, who had made several trips with Muir to the Yosemite 
and Yellowstone Park, the big forests of California and to 
Alaska. I knew that the two had not gotten along very well 
together, but supposed that Mr. Burroughs would appreciate 
what I had to say about his fellow-naturalist. A letter from 
Burroughs greatly disappointed me. While thanking me for 
the book and writing words of appreciation, he showed the bad 
taste to attack Muir. He wrote: ‘‘ What I did not like about 
Muir was his utter lack of human sympathy. He would not 
crush a flower, but would ruthlessly hurt the feelings of a 
friend. He cared for no one’s opinions but his own,” and so 
on for a page or two of criticism. 

I have read Muir very differently. While at Yindestukki 
this incident occurred, the like of which was several times re- 


Buz HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


peated during our voyages: There was a very small baby in 
Donnawuk’s house, which kept crying in a feeble voice during 
the night. Muir and I were both disturbed by the poor infant’s 
cries, and we got up to find out if it was sick, or if we could 
not soothe or help it. We were informed that its mother had 
died, and that there was no milk for the child in the village 
and no nursing mother who could take care of it. .The baby 
was starving. 

One old woman said to John, ‘“‘ Maybe one, two more day 
it cry, then it die.” Muir turned to John and asked how 
much condensed milk we had left. The only condensed 
milk at that time was the old Eagle brand of thick, sweetened 
milk. John reported eight cans still remaining in our supply. 
‘“‘ Bring it here,” ordered Muir. “ Let us see if we can’t feed 
this child.” ‘Together he and I prepared it with warm water, 
using our judgment as to what we thought was the right — 
strength. We fed that baby all it could take, and then Muir 
walked with it in his arms until its cries were hushed as it 
fell asleep. Before we left we gave our whole remaining supply 
of milk to the woman who was taking care of the child, in- 
structing her how to feed it and how to take care of it. Muir, 
with his own hands, bathed the baby. He spent five or six 
hours with that child in the night when he was very tired, 
helping to save its life. 

Before we left Chilcat, Donnawuk and the woman who 
cared for the infant came to us and said, “If this baby lives 
we will give him to you. He is yours because you saved him.” 
Seven years later I was astonished by a visit from a Chilcat 
Indian leading a little boy. She said, “ This is your baby. 
You saved his life at Yindestukki. Donnawuk promised to 
give him to you, and now we have brought him. He is not 
ours any longer. He is yours.” 

I took him and named him “ John,” and he was afterwards 
educated at our Wrangell mission and then at Sitka. I heard 





THE NORTHERN TRIBES 213 


of him years afterwards as a respectable Christian native. 
And yet Burroughs said Muir had no human sympathy! 

Old Skundoo-oo gave us a good deal of trouble when he 
would come to Fort Wrangell by insisting upon making medi- 
cine, and by his efforts to collect blankets on foolish charges 
from those whom he accused of witchcraft. Shathitch re- 
mained a heathen of heathens, visiting us during his trips to 
Fort Wrangell only when he wanted a favour. So many acts 
of cruelty and tyranny were laid at his door that we almost 
held our breath when he arrived, and did not breathe freely 
until he left. 

A north wind was blowing hard down Lynn Canal when we 
bade good-bye to the hospitable natives of Yindestukki. We 
experienced the oon in its fierceness, but we were happy be- 
cause we made about forty miles that first day. 

When we visited the Auk Indians, Tow-a-att rebelled. 
“Why do you go see these worthless savages? ” he asked. 

“They are human beings and brothers,” I replied. “ Our 
message is to all men.” 

“Yes, to men,” grumbled the old chief, ‘‘ but these are not 
men; they are dogs.” 

We soon learned that the Auks were poor and despised by 
all the other tribes; that they were ‘“ worm eaters,’’ living 
largely on those queer annelids that are found along certain 
beaches, which worms are often five or six inches in length, and 
when tapped on a log stiffen up until they are an inch in 
diameter. I could never bring myself to taste them, although 
our Indians said they were very much like a clam in flavour. 
But these sea worms were considered food fit only for the 
poorest and the slaves. 

The Auks were remote from the most favourable hunting 
and fishing regions; they were midway between the Chilcat 
and Tacoo regions, both of which had access to the interior, 
permitting these two tribes to trade with the “ Stick Siwashes ” 


214 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


for their furs. The Auks had only the northern shore of Ad- 
miralty Island and some thirty miles of mainland for their 
habitat. They were cut off from the best salmon streams and 
seal fisheries. Many of them had been captured as slaves by 
other tribes. 

When I insisted on landing there and preaching the Gospel 
to them, Tow-a-att said, “‘ You must not ask me to lead in 
prayer at those meetings.” The fine old chief had his pride, 
and you could not move him. However, we stopped at the two 
villages, one on the mainland—not far from the present cap- 
ital of Juneau and near the Auk Glacier, now called Menden- 
hall Glacier. The other stood on the shore of the deep bay, 
now called Young’s Bay, on the north shore of Admiralty 
Island. The poor people were pathetically glad to see us and 
hear our message. And although no schools and missions were 
established at these small towns, nearly all of the Auks have 
become Christianized and have moved to the vicinity of Juneau 
and Douglas. Some of them have made splendid progress, 
and the young people are among the brightest and best Chris- 
tian pupils. 

Many times these Auk Indians, when I have met them at 
Fort Wrangell and Juneau, have mentioned with feeling those 
first meetings we held at the Auk villages when we spoke the 
message which “led our hearts into the new way.” 

We passed the mouth of Tacoo Bay and visited a small 
village by a salmon stream but were unable, owing to the mul- 
titude of icebergs and the strong wind blowing down the 
Tacoo River, to explore as far as the mouth of that river. 
Snowstorms were becoming frequent, and the winter was al- 
most upon us. So many of the Tacoos made their residence at 
Fort Wrangell, and attended our meetings and sent their 
children to our schools, that we were not strangers. A few of 
the Tacoos had even become members of our church. We had 
a fellowship meeting in the harbour, indicated on the chart as 





4 
4 
4 
4 


THE NORTHERN TRIBES 215 


“Tacoo Harbour,” where a neat village of half a dozen well- 
built Indian houses filled with natives gave us welcome and 
listened attentively to our message. We reported what they 
said and their condition to Dr. Corleis, and the next fall he and 
his wife went to that harbour and wintered there, starting a 
successful mission for that tribe. 

Then down the coast, passing the deep bay called Port 
Snettisham until, rounding a point when night was coming 
on, we steered into Holkham Bay. The rain was falling 
thickly, and the night was pitch black. Our Indians were be- 
wildered; we were fairly lost. We stationed a man in the bow 
with a pole to make soundings, lest we should suddenly be 
wrecked upon a rock or upon one of the icebergs that filled the 
channel. We groped for two or three hours in the darkness, 
sometimes approaching the land, only to find the way 
blockaded by rocky islets or a wild sea breaking upon the rocks 
and flinging its spray upon us. Not until a great white cloud 
appeared before us that seemed to hover close to the water, but 
which the Indians explained as Sumdum Glacier, did we get 
our bearings. Towards this we were paddling carefully when 
suddenly a bright beam of light shone out ahead. We steered 
towards it, but presently it was blotted from our vision by an 
intervening island. We worked our way ahead, the light shin- 
ing with its welcome rays and then blinking out. At last it 
shone steadily a mile ahead, and we paddled with renewed con- 
fidence. We supposed we were nearing the village of the Sum- 
dum tribe, but on landing upon a beautiful gravel beach in a 
sheltered harbour found a company of half a dozen white men; 
some of them were lying asleep in their blankets under a fly 
tent, but two of their number sat on a log by the fire sheltered 
from the rain. 

We learned that they were miners who had been working a 
claim a mile from there at the foot of the glacier. The heavy 
rains had sent such a flood of water down upon them that 


216 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


their wing dams were washed away and they were forced to 
give up work for the season. I was acquainted with two or 
three of their number, and, tired and hungry as we were, we 
greatly enjoyed the hospitality of these men of the wilderness 
and the hot coffee and pot of beans they tendered us. We were 
able to reciprocate with fresh venison and ducks, and almost 
our whole remaining supply of sugar. The next morning we 
visited the Sumdum village and found thirty or forty men, 
women and children in a rather squalid house. They had an 
abundance of salmon and halibut hung over the fire drying. 
The Sumdum tribe, akin to the Tacoos, with some connection 
with the Stickeens, had once been large and powerful, but were 
fast disappearing. The tribal wars and then the scourge of the 
small-pox almost wiped them out. 

The next day we took aboard our canoe one of the Sumdums 
as a guide and essayed to pursue the ice to its lair in the 
glaciers up Endicott Arm. But the ice was so thick, the bergs 
grinding upon each other and blocking the way, that after five 
or six hours’ struggling, without making much headway, our 
natives flatly refused to go any farther. ‘“‘ You are too late,” 
they told Muir. ‘‘ We cannot find your ice mountain at this 
season. You will have to come again if you want to explore 
this bay any farther.” 

As usual, Muir was reluctant to give up. Any place of 
interest which he failed to visit lay on his conscience’as a 
grievance. To him the native tribes were only incidents; his 
one object was to see the mountains and the glaciers. But 
he had to give this one up, and so we bowled before a Tacoo 
wind down Stevens Passage to Prince Frederick Sound and 
along its shore, making our way towards the mouth of the 
Stickeen River and Fort Wrangell. 

One adventure occurred that very nearly proved to be our 
last, illustrating Muir’s impatience and the extent to which he 
could push our native crew. A strong wind from the Stickeen 





THE NORTHERN TRIBES 217 


was buffeting us as we rounded Cape Fanshaw, paddled past 
Farragut Bay and approached the northern end of Wrangell 
Narrows. We put in for the night to a wooded cove on the lee 
shore of a long narrow point called Vandeput. In the morning 
we rounded this point, but as soon as we left the shelter of the 
forest we were met by a tremendous gale and high seas. A 
reef of rocks, bending in a half curve, stretched off from the 
end of the point as far as we could see. The rain came in 
torrents, and the spray dashed angrily upon the rocks. Tow-a- 
att gave word to cease paddling and, turning to us, said: 

“ We cannot round that reef in this gale; we must turn back 
and camp.” 

As usual Muir protested. “It is getting late now, and we 
must get home. Go on, and make a further effort to get around 
this reef.” 

As always, I preferred to let the Indians be the pilots, but I 
said to Tow-a-att, ‘‘ You would better try a while longer and 
see if we cannot make it. I, too, am anxious to get home.” 

“All right,” he said, and resumed his paddling. The reef 
seemed to be endless. We moved along inch by inch, keeping 
well away from the breakers. At last the gale became so strong 
that we were making no progress at all. Muir cried out: 

“Keep on going. Cross the reef and get along.” 

Tow-a-att said something, and John interpreted: ‘‘ He say 
it’s dangerous; the canoe will be wrecked.” 

*¢ Ah, you are all cowards,” Muir answered. ‘“ Go across, go 
across.” 

When John reported Muir’s words to Tow-a-att, the old 
chief suddenly said: ‘‘ Very well, if we die you die, too,” and 
turned the canoe sharply towards the reef. In an instant we 
were in white water with the spray dashing over us. The 
canoe would be lifted high and then come down with the 
jagged rocks lying all about us. Suddenly I shouted a warn- 
ing. There was a jagged rock within a yard of my side of the 


me: 


218 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


canoe. At the same time Muir called out and pointed to one 
on his side of the canoe, fairly scraping it. We ceased pad- 
dling. ‘Tow-a-att’s voice rang out sharply: “ Ut ha, ut ha” 
(paddle, you fools, paddle! ). 

We bent to our paddles again, and a great wave heaved us 
high. We redoubled our efforts, and in another moment we 
were across the reef and in calm water. We were all scared at 
the peril we had so narrowly escaped, except old Tow- 
a-att. He steered the canoe into a little cove, left his seat in 
the stern, and called John to him. Then he gave Muir what I 
think was the worst scolding that my companion had ever re- 
ceived in all his life. 

“You know many things,” he said, “I do not. You can tell 
us about the sun and stars and the great world outside; you 
have traveled on the steam horse to many lands, but you do 
not know Alaska and her waters. Many times on this trip you © 
acted like a silly child. If we had listened to you we would 
not be alive now. You forced us to cross that reef when we 
were taking our lives in our hands. Perhaps you, Charlie, 
John and Kadishan might have swum ashore if our canoe had 
been smashed, but Mr. Young and I are not strong, and I am 
old, and we would have been drowned. Would you be happy 
now on the shore with us lying among the breakers? Here- 
after, let me manage this canoe. Don’t act like a fool any 
more.” 

Muir did not often acknowledge his faults, but this time he 
was as meek as a child; he accepted the whole of the chief’s 
rebuff, and did not give him occasion for anger again. 

We had one more day of joyful exploration in Leconte Bay, 
among its hundreds of beautiful blue icebergs. This bay, 
which is only twelve miles from Fort Wrangell, is a narrow 
one, shut in by ice and jagged rocks, and the glacier is only 
about half a mile wide at its front. The Indians named it 
Hutlai (Thunder Bay). Muir sketched it and made many 





THE NORTHERN TRIBES 219 


notes of it; then with the rising tide we paddled across the 
Stickeen flats through what is called Dry Passage, and so joy- 
fully to our friends. We had been gone six weeks and had 
traveled over eight hundred miles. We had visited seven 
tribes of natives, thirteen towns and about thirty camps. I 
had carried the Gospel message to all of these, none of whom 
had heard the Good Word before. It was to most of them the 
beginning of an era of peace and progress. Although they were 
savages, we were tréated hospitably at every point. We had 
been rained upon, buffeted by winds, and had enjoyed little 
of what the ordinary man would call comfort; but I do not re- 
call a moment when we regretted our journey or complained 
of weather or storm. We had experienced the joy of explora- 
tion in new regions, as well as the discovery of new people. 
As for me, this first voyage dispelled my fears and opened my 
eyes to many things undreamed of before. My fear of the 
unknown had vanished, and in its place was an undying eager- 
ness to see what lay beyond. For the first time I felt I was a 
real missionary, one who was sent and who obeyed the com- 
mand, “‘ Go.” 

Our friends, white and native, at Fort Wrangell, had not 
been able to hear a word from us during our long voyage, and 
their joy at our return was equal to ours. Muir remained only 
until the next steamer, and went South, to thrill the scientific 
world with his writings about the trip, while I could make my 
reports and publish my articles to a wondering and sympathetic 
world of Christians. 


XXI 


CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION 


a state of uncertain equilibrium. The unexpected was 

always happening. The McFarland Industrial Home 
for Girls must be finished, and the girls must be gathered to 
fill it; the church building, although occupied regularly, was 
by no means completed. The disquiet of the community was 
always apparent. The Christmas season, while it brought 
boxes of clothing, toys and other articles for distribution to the 
children, enabling us to have a great celebration, yet did not 
allay the unrest. Rumours of an intended visitation by the 
Hoochenoo tribe to collect debts, real and fancied, were always 
rife. We knew that the Indians in the other tribes and even 
the Stickeens were making hooch everywhere—some almost 
within sight of Fort Wrangell; and even in our town, while we 
could break up the stills of the natives, there were always 
white men making the horrible stuff and selling it to our In- 
dians. 

Colonel Crittenden had established a system of quasi police; 
Matthew was the head policeman, and the others, such as 
Aaron, Moses and Thomas, were sometimes called in to aid 
him in keeping order. But the old Colonel was too much 
engaged with his own Indian household to keep his hand on 
the throttle. Contradictory orders, and his failure to see that 
any of them were enforced, brought confusion instead of 
peace. The state of warfare between the two families already 
mentioned kept bullets flying unpleasantly over the town. 
Charlie Gunnock, a jeweler of the Kake tribe, an innocent by- 
stander, while witnessing the shooting between the two families 

220 


‘ FFAIRS at Fort Wrangell in those early days were in 





CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION 221 


received a bullet in his knee which crippled him for life, and 
called for the surgical skill of Dr. Corleis, and for my diplo- 
macy to prevent another outbreak. 

School and church went on with full attendance, but trouble 
was in the air. Shortly before the New Year the Hoochenoos 
became very troublesome. Dr. Corleis and his wife held meet- 
ings in the Foreign Town, and on the first Sabbath after the 
New Year they found their people nearly all drunk, screeching 
women lying about the beach with little or no clothing, exposed 
to the cold. The doctor, without realizing the danger of inter- 
ference in a drunken mob, took Matthew and Aaron with him 
and attempted to break up a Hoochenoo still that was going 
full blast. The proprietor, who was a kinsman of old Klee-a- 
keet, the famous medicine-man, resented the interference. A 
fight ensued, and, although the sober Stickeens had the best of 
it, Aaron received a deep scratch on his face. 

Here came in the strange principle of “ Indian shame.” It 
worked in this way: A and B have a quarrel; A might thrash 
B and leave him prostrated on the ground; but if B had scarred 
A’s face there was “ shame ” on that face not to be erased ex- 
cept by the payment of many blankets. I was ill at the time 
and in bed. The exposure of the last few days of my great 
trip with Muir had induced a cold from which I had not re- 


- covered, and a fever, with splitting headache, laid me up. 


Therefore I was ignorant of what was going on in the Stickeen 
town. Following the skirmish, Aaron and his family, which 
was Tow-a-att’s, discussed the disgrace that had befallen 
Aaron, stirring up one another to deeper indignation; and on 
Monday morning a company of some ten men, armed with 
pick handles and ax helves went up to the Hoochenoo village 
to collect payment for the insult. Just what happened was 
never clearly explained, but there was a brisk skirmish with 
clubs, hatchets and knives—a kind of Donnybrook Fair. 
The Stickeens, being sober, had the best of it, and, as a result, 


222 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


a number of the Hoochenoos received bloody noses and black 
eyes. 

The affair was reported to me, and from my bed I sent a 
summons to Tow-a-att and Moses and Aaron to come to see 
me. Only Tow-a-att obeyed, Aaron and Moses being too 
angry, and too sensible of their fault, to wish to see me. 
Tow-a-att was much troubled. ‘Oh, Mr. Young,” he said, “I 
think my time has come. My family have not God in their 
hearts. I will do all in my power to make peace, but they will 
not listen to reason.” He went back to his house, called the 
men of his family together and himself offered to pay a large 
number of blankets to compose the trouble and appease the 
Hoochenoos, although he had not been concerned at all in the 
fight. 

At daylight on the morning of January 10, 1880, the darkest 
day in my calendar, Mrs. Dickinson and several others of my 
Christian natives came rushing to my house in great excite- 
ment. Although dizzy from the fever, I dressed and went at 
once to the Stickeen village. I found great excitement—men 
racing around with guns in their hands, inflammatory speeches 
shouted from one part of the beach to another, all sorts of 
rumours flying through the air. Scarcely had I reached Tow- 
a-att’s house when the word was brought that the Hoochenoos 
were coming down the beach in force, and presently they ap- 
peared walking through the white man’s town, some forty of 
them with guns. Most of them were under the influence of 
liquor, but there was some sort of order in their company— 
the chief of the Hoochenoos having them under partial control. 
I was urging the Stickeens to stay in their houses, and Tow-a- 
att was disposed to back me up. He said: “I have done the 
Hoochenoos no wrong; let their chief meet me with Mr. 
Young, and we will make peace and come to an agreement.” 

I took this message to the Hoochenoo chief, and he was dis- 
posed to accede to the proposition, but his people were unruly. 





CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION 223 


While I would be talking to one group the others would be 
going through their war dances and shouting defiance—a mob 
of drunken savages. Twice I got the Stickeens back to their 
homes, out of sight of the Hoochenoos; I tried to get the thirty 
or forty white men who were there to go with me and scatter 
the Indians, but they were afraid to interfere. One of them, 
who was known as a distiller, said, ‘‘ Let them alone, and let’s 
see the fun.” 

The action of the Stickeens in remaining in their houses was 
misinterpreted as cowardice. Catastrophe followed. Moses, 
who was a half-breed and a prospector, had accumulated quite 
a little gold, had spent it in building a neat white-man’s cot- 
tage, which he furnished with fine chairs, table and a small 
organ. ‘The Hoochenoos had advanced as far as his house 
when some one told them that this was Moses’ house. ‘The 
mob broke in his door, threw the furniture into the street and 
began to break it up in sight of the Stickeens. I hastened from 
Tow-a-att’s house, which was some distance away, and tried 
to prevent this outrage, but the Hoochenoos were too angry 
and too drunk to heed me. They plucked at me to detain me, 
and yelled this and that in my ears. Suddenly I felt some one 
pulling at my coat, and then an old squaw got me around the 
neck, screaming I know not what. 

Before I could get back to the Stickeens they had possessed 
themselves of their guns and had come out. Moses was beside 
himself with anger at the loss of his precious furniture. He 
had in his hand an old Hudson Bay flintlock pistol of large 
bore and rusty from disuse. Behind him with their guns were 
Aaron and Matthew, dodging among the boulders. The rest 
were strung along the beach, only five or six of them in front. 
Among them was old Tow-a-att. In his hand was a curious 
carved spear, made of some solid, heavy wood, which had 
floated from the East Indies and stranded on Alaskan shores. 
He used the spear as a sign of authority as chief. 


224 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


I broke away from the angry mob of Hoochenoos and 
rushed up to Tow-a-att. Stickeen Johnny was with me, al- 
though he, too, had a gun in his hand. I shouted, “ Call your 
men back! Don’t you see the Hoochenoos are massing in 
front of you? They are many, and you are few. Go back! ” 

I got close to Tow-a-att and put my hand on his shoulder. 
‘“‘Come back with me to your house,” I entreated. The chief 
looked at me with a proud smile. I can see it yet on that grand 
old face. 

“ Vukeh!”’ (good), he said, and lifted his voice in command 
to his people. But he was too late. The volley commenced 
with a crash on both sides of us. A Hoochenoo not more than 
three yards away made Tow-a-att his target, and the brave 
old chief fell dead at my feet with a bullet through his head. 
Moses, who was standing behind a boulder a rod away, trying 
to fire his old pistol, also fell. Kitch-gow-ish, Tow-a-att’s 
brother, also was killed. Two Hoochenoos fell dead, and a 
dozen on each side were wounded. 

I felt the wind of bullets in my face; but do not recollect 
any sense of fear or danger. The combatants were close to- 
gether and knew what they were shooting at; and I knew they 
were not aiming at me. The natives knew that the white man’s 
government would take no heed of what they would do to 
each other, but would not suffer them to injure a white man 
without visiting upon them condign punishment. 

Indian-like, both sides broke and ran back as soon as they 
fired their muskets, and I was left alone with my dead Chris- 
tian natives at my feet. Tacoo Charlie, a tall young man who 
had been attending our meetings, came rushing from his house 
near by and begged me to go into his house. I finally picked 
up my old friend, Tow-a-att, who was dead, and Moses, who 
was gasping his last. With the aid of the Tacoos, who were 
neutrals in the battle, I carried my dead into the Tacoo chief’s 
house. It seemed as if the world had come crashing about me. 





CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION “nS 


My people were tumbled back into barbarism; the whole fabric 
of our efforts and faith had been demolished. I went back to 
the crowd of white men and shamed them into coming out. 
We disarmed the Hoochenoos and sent the whole band of them 
back to their village. 

Lest Dr. Corleis be blamed too much for remaining in his 
house after his part in bringing on the trouble, I will say this: 
Mrs. Corleis had fastened herself so tightly about the doctor’s 
neck that he could not disengage himself. )Father Althorf, the 
priest, was similarly detained by one of his parishioners. 

The darkness and despair of the hours and days which fol- 
lowed are the blackest of all my experiences. We gathered the 
Corleis family, Mrs. McFarland and her girls, into our house 
and held council. The Stickeens felt the disgrace of defeat and 
were sullen and revengeful; some of them blamed me for keep- 
ing the Stickeens back and preventing them from whipping 
the Hoochenoos. A few of the Indian mothers took their girls 
away from Mrs. McFarland’s Home, while others brought 
their girls to her for safety. A number of my church members 
openly renounced Christianity and went back to “old fash- 
ions.” 

After the battle all was sorrow. The deepest wound of all 
was the death of our fine old chief. ‘ Better to have lost a 


dozen others,” I felt, “than this ‘noblest Roman of them 


all.” When we assembled for family prayer I felt I could 
not go through with the worship. 

The white men furnished armed guards to parade in front 
of our house at the Fort, and there was no further open vio- 
lence. The Hoochenoos took advantage of a dark night and 
stole back to their own country. Little by little the ordinary 
routine was reéstablished. But somehow the life and spirit of 
our work seemed gone; the faith of the people had been rudely 
shocked; an orgy of drunkenness took possession of the Stick- 
eens; although none of them made the stuff themselves, there 


226 _ HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


were plenty of white men who kept their stills going and fur- 
nished the liquor to our people. Drunken Indians would come 
yelling through the town, some of them even up to the very 
church doors. In my despair I wrote to Commander Beardslee 
of the man-of-war, “Jamestown,” at Sitka, describing the state 
of affairs. He suddenly sent down a revenue cutter full of ma- 
rines, raided the stills, arrested six white men and took them 
to Portland, where they were confined in the penitentiary. 
This was the only aid I received from the government in estab- . 
lishing order during all of those troublous days. For the 
murder of our Christian Indians, for the destruction of our 
Christian fabric, and the retrogression of our natives, the 
white man and the white man’s government, which gave us no 
safeguard from such scenes, were responsible. 

Our experience with the Hoochenoos has necessitated the 
most heartrending of all my chapters. Let me lighten it up a 
little by pursuing the story of the Hoochenoos down to the 
present time. After the war, members of that tribe kept away 
from Fort Wrangell; the other tribes came as usual to trade, 
but the Hoochenoos went only to Sitka. Not until 1881 was 
this dispute between the Stickeens and Hoochenoos settled. 

The following spring a delegation of the Stickeen tribe met 
at Sitka with another from the Hoochenoo, in obedience to a 
call from the commander of the gunboat. Kadishan and 
Shakes headed the Stickeen delegation. The case was heard, 
and a peace settlement decreed by the commander. While this 
was observed and there was no open hostility, the two tribes 
kept away from each other for a number of years, until the 
more abiding and effective peace message of Christianity wiped 
out the remembrances of their grievances. There has been 
no general conflict between any two tribes of the Archipelago 
for many years. 

The Hoochenoos were the last of the large tribes to embrace 
Christianity. All efforts to settle teachers and missionaries at 


CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION 227 


Angoon failed for a number of years. Two or three teachers 
and missionaries were sent there, but remained only a short 
time without having accomplished much. Not until the Sitka 
training school attracted the young men and women of the 
tribe did the Hoochenoos show any real marks of conversion 
from savagery. I have embodied a story of their conversion in 
a leaflet published by the Presbyterian Board of National Mis- 
sions, entitled The Wonderful Story of Angoon. These are the 
salient points: 

About 1903 Captain Pratt of the famous Training School at 
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, made a visit to Alaska, seeking pupils. 


’ Three young girls at Haines, which town Captain Pratt made 


his headquarters on account of the vicinity of Fort William H. 
Seward, greatly desired to go with him and get an up-to-date 
education. The mothers of these girls refused their consent. 
To them a journey so far was full of unknown terrors. They 
thought they would never see their daughters again. Among 
these girls was a bright-eyed active child, named Frances Phil- 
lips. She cried so long and so hard at her mother’s refusal 
that the mother relented to this extent: ‘‘ If you stop crying, I 
will send you to the Training School at Sitka.” So Frances 
went, and remained in that school for four or five years, being 
the first pupil to graduate in the eighth grade. She had joined 
the Church and was the recognized leader of the school in 
scholarship and in all its activities. 

While she was there a young man of the Hoochenoo tribe, 
also, was taken with a strong desire for an education. When 
his parents refused their consent for him to go to Sitka he ran 
away, boarded a schooner and went to the school. When 
Frances was ready to graduate she had formed an attachment 
with this young man, whose name was Sam Johnson. On one 
side of his house he was a descendant of the famous Klee-a- 
keet. Before they were married, at their request a delegation of 
Christian pupils from the school, led by their pastor, Rev. R. 


228 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


J. Diven, had gone to Angoon, which was only sixty miles from 
Sitka. They held meetings there, and enrolled upward of 
twenty of the leading citizens in Angoon as prospective church 
-members. 

After Sam and Frances were married and moved to An- 
goon, Frances took virtual charge of the town and its morals. 
She was one of the strongest characters found among all 
the natives of Alaska. Gentle, sweet-natured and intensely 
earnest, she became the “ beloved one ” to the tribe. Sam and 
his father and brothers had some wealth; they possessed a 
couple of gasoline fishing boats, had a share in a sawmill and | 
were men of influence. Frances made Sam build a house large 
enough fora church. There meetings were held every Sabbath 
and a prayer-meeting during the week. Frances prepared 
Sam’s sermons, and he delivered them. 

Another expedition was sent out later from Sitka, and more 
converts of the Hoochenoos registered. In the winter of 
1922-23 Rev. David Waggoner and myself went to Angoon. 
We were received most cordially by Frances, who did her very 
best as hostess. She and Sam vacated their little room in the 
end of the large house and installed us there. For many days 
she had been preparing delicacies for us, and cooked our food 
with great care, everything about the house and the person of 
its inhabitants being spotlessly clean. She led us from house 
to house, and told us the history of the different families, all 
of whom had come under her personal influence. The women 
had learned from her how to take care of their babies; the 
young people had been taught by her lessons of morality and 
decency—in fact, the whole town was transformed. After sev- 
eral days of meetings and conference we organized the Church 
of Angoon, with sixty members. Practically the whole town 
joined the Church. Instead of the screeching and howling of 
medicine-men and drunken yells, we now hear hymns of praise 
and prayers of devotion. Instead of being the most feared and 


~*~ 
J 7 


| 





CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION 229 


hopeless heathen town in the Archipelago, Angoon is now one 
of the very cleanest and best. 

Our dear Frances, however, lived only long enough to see 
her cherished plan of a church organization completed. Sam 
had been received as a candidate for the ministry. In 1924 he 
brought his loved wife and little son to the government hos- 
pital at Juneau; they were both deathly sick. The little boy 
was first to die, and in a few days Frances followed. We had 
been going to see her daily for a week when, on Sunday morn- 
ing, word was brought that she was dying. The little church 
was not far distant, and Frances sent word to open the doors 
and windows and to sing: 


“My hope is built on nothing less 
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. 
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand— 
All other ground is sinking sand.” 


The dying woman joined feebly, with an ecstatic smile on 
her wan face, and soon passed away. Before her death she 
had started a subscription in Angoon to build a new church. 
Sam and his brothers took up this work, and a beautiful little 
building called “ the Frances Johnson Memorial Church ” was 


erected, almost éntirely by the Indians themselves. The peo- 


ple there are poor, but their spirit is most devout. The sequel 
of Angoon is one of our best examples of what the seeds of 
the Gospel, sown in weakness, in the midst of terrible dis- 
couragement, have brought forth. It seems to us altogether 
worth while. — 


XXII 
THE HYDAS > 


WAS again urged by the Board to launch my missionary 
| canoe and explore the tribes to the south. When spring 

opened Rev. George W. Lyon and his wife arrived from 
California. They were commissioned to Sitka, but stopped at 
Fort Wrangell for a month in order to learn something about 
the natives and how to get along with them. Mr. Lyon was a 
splendid man, but both he and his wife were in poor health, 
having hardly recovered from an attack of typhoid fever. I 
was about to make my first visit to the Hydas, who occupied 
the extreme southern part of the Archipelago. A number of 
these interesting people had attended our meetings at Wrangell 
on their trading journeys to the place, and we were struck by 
their fine appearance and beautiful canoes, the superiority of 
their baskets, mats and carving, and their eagerness to learn 
the white man’s ways. Their history may be briefly sketched 
as follows: 

Like the Thlingits, their origin is obscure. The name given 
them by the Thlingits signifies “‘ The people from the South.” 
They were first known to the whites as inhabitants of the out- 
lying group called Queen Charlotte Islands, reaching the most 
of the way from the northern end of Vancouver Island to 
Dickson entrance, which divides them from Alaska. Their 
language is entirely distinct from that of the Thlingits and 
also from the Tsimpshean. 

The Hydas evince a different origin from the Thlingits. The 
latter are evidently Japanese, probably the descendants of the 
Ainus, the older and more barbarous tribes of Japan. But the 
Hydas are taller, fairer and more advanced in native arts. The 

230 


THE HYDAS 231 


most plausible theory is that they came from the Malay Pen- 
insula. Their canoes are like those of the Malays; their carv- 
ings and the figures which are worked into their implements, 
mats and baskets point to the people of Southern Asia as their 
progenitors. They always have been a warlike and progressive 
people. The immense red cedar trees on the Queen Charlotte 
group furnish material for the largest and finest canoes made 
in North America. The Hydas were the instructors of the 
Thlingits and Tsimpsheans in canoe-making, house-building, 
totem-pole carving, basket-making and other arts. 

The exact period at which they raided the Thlingits of the 
Tongass and Hanega tribes, who inhabited the Cordova Bay 
region, southwest of Prince of Wales Island, and the south- 
eastern shore of that great island, is lost in the mist of legend 
and never can be exactly determined. But it could not have 
been so very long ago; perhaps a hundred years previous to the 
purchase of Alaska by the United States. They drove the 
Hanegas northward from the Cordova Bay region, taking pos- 
session of their towns. The names are Thlingit, but the people, 
as we found them, were Hydas. They drove the Tongass east- 
ward towards the mainland at the mouth of the Naas River, 
and established on Prince of Wales Island the Hyda town of 
Kasaan, which has a Thlingit name. It is evident that the 
Thlingits had no chance with these stronger and more intel- 
ligent Hydas. When peace was patched up between them, 
jealousy and animosity remained, and to this day the Hydas 
of Alaska are proud of their origin and despise the weaker 
and more ignorant Thlingits. 

Delegations of the Hydas had been coming to me at Fort 
Wrangell ever since my arrival, asking for missionaries and 
schools. Sanheit, the head chief of Kasaan, had come in formal 
state with a large canoe to Fort Wrangell, especially to see 
me and to ask for a missionary. With him came his niece, a 
large, finely built and stately young woman, who was known 


232 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


as Hyda Susan. She brought with her a little girl seven or 
eight years of age and placed her in Mrs. McFarland’s Home. 
The other girls in the establishment were all Thlingit, and 
little Susie, as she was called, could not talk with them except 
in the Chinook jargon. So she was handicapped from the 
first, and to a certain extent ostracized by the little Thlingit 
girls. Whenever she could she would run across the campus 
to our house, to play with our baby, and she followed Mrs. 
Young and me around like a kitten. We became very warmly 
attached to her; she was so sweet and bright and so unlike 
the stolid little Thlingits. 

It did not take us long to fall in love with her, and we asked 
Mrs. McFarland to sign her over to us, that we might give 
her our name and adopt her as our child. This she was glad 
to do, and Susie came to our home about Christmas time that 
winter. From the first she identified herself with us com- 
pletely. To her the whites were “we” and the Indians 
“they.” She had a thin strain of white blood in her own 
veins; for her father, Kenowan, who was the most famous 
carver in wood, silver and stone ever known in Alaska, was 
himself a quarter-breed; that is, he had a quarter of white 
blood, his father being a half-breed. Susie seemed to be in 
features, disposition and in all her traits, white. She was very 
bright and quick to learn. Not very long before her arrival 
at Fort Wrangell she had gone through a terrible experience. 
There were three little girls in the family, Susie being the 
middle one. They had an old slave who was more a father to 
the little girls than their own parent. The old slave used to 
carry them on his back across the streams, make toys for them 
and give them little beads which looked like pearls. These 
were made from small pods of fucus or transparent seaweed; 
the old man filled them full of white venison tallow, and they 
made very beautiful, pearl-like beads. 

Kenowan was taken very sick with consumption and was 


THE HYDAS 233 


slowly dying. The medicine-men came and performed their 
incantations, but the chief was doomed. He enjoined upon his 
wife as his last request that she should send little Susie to the 
white people to be educated. When Kenowan died his relatives 
took the old slave, after their fashion, and at a great feast laid 
him on the ground; and while the natives were dancing around 
Kenowan’s funeral pyre the medicine-man took a greenstone 
ax and in the presence of the little girls, who were compelled 
to look on at the ceremony and who prayed in vain for the life 
of the good old man, they dashed out his brains and sent him 
to wait upon his chief in the Happy Hunting Grounds. 

The horror of this scene never left little Susie’s mind. She 
tried to describe the scene to us in her broken language, but 
always broke down and wept so pitifully that we had to make 
her stop. She never forgot the cruelty and heathenism that 
surrounded her father’s death. We used to have actually to 
compel her to go and see her mother and her aunt when they 
would come to visit her in Wrangell. When we went East on 
our first missionary lecture tour, in 1883, we took the child 
with us and left her in a school for girls in Washington, 
Pennsylvania. She endeared herself to teachers and pupils 
there and developed quite a talent for drawing and for making 
fancy work. But, alas, the germs of tuberculosis were in her 


blood, and she died at the age of seventeen. Her name is en- 


shrined in our memory along with that of our youngest child, 
who died at Wrangell shortly before Susie. Our recollections 
of both are alike—dear and sweet. 

One of my errands to the Hydas was to secure papers of 
adoption from Susie’s mother. Sanheit offered to take us 
around Mesatche Nose (bad nose), the lower point of Prince 
of Wales Island, to the four Hyda towns in Cordova Bay, 
Klinquan, Koianglas, Howcan and Sukwhan. So Mr. Lyon 
and I boarded his canoe in April, 1880, and went with Sanheit 
to the town of Kasaan, located on a bay of the same name, 


234 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


sixty miles south of Fort Wrangell. Here we held meetings 
and made preparations for manning that town. We were im- 
mensely interested in “Old Kasaan,” which was not at that 
time deserted. It possessed the most beautifully carved and 
tallest totem poles in all the world. Some of them are now in 
the Smithsonian Institute in Washington City, in the Metro- 
politan Museum in New York City, in the Museum at Chicago, 
and quite a number are in the beautiful park at Sitka. 

The finest of these were the work of Kenowan, Susie’s tal- 
ented father. That man was an artist. He could take a little 
hand adz and sit down before you with a post of yellow cedar 
before him and begin to chip with his adz. In the course of a 
day he would have an image of your form carved on that pole 
which could be recognized by any of your friends. Old Kasaan 
was in the process of replacement by the new town, the site of 
which had been selected by a salmon canning company. Al- 
though I made several missionary trips to Kasaan in the years 
that followed and sent there two different groups of native 
teachers who had been trained at Wrangell, it was not until 
1903 that we completed the organization of a church at 
Kasaan; the erection of the building soon followed. 

On our first journey we picked up at Kasaan an interpreter, 
Paul Jones, a large, old, blind man who had made trips on 
English gunboats and American cutters, and had acquired a 
somewhat respectable knowledge of English. He made with 
me the round of all the Hyda towns and did my interpreting. 

Our visit to these Hyda centers was full of interest. While 
we found hooch still going, medicine-men practicing, slaves 
held in all the houses and all the accompaniments of heathen- 
dom, yet the towns were so much cleaner, better built and the 
people so much more prosperous and intelligent than the 
Thlingits that I was full of joy. We were received most 
cordially by Chief Skotlkah at Howcan, the largest of the 
towns. He called all the Hydas to council, kept us there sev- 





THE HYDAS 235 


eral days, sent his young men hunting for deer and listened to 
us with marked attention. 

In telling the story of the Hydas I am tempted to adopt 
Virgil’s method and begin at the sequel: 

About 1922 I made a trip to the Hyda country on Cordova 
Bay, which was the first preaching trip I had made to that 
tribe in more than twenty years. A neat government mail boat 
landed me at a new town, called Hydaburg. I arrived on Sun- 
day morning, shortly before the hour for service. I was re- 
ceived by the minister, who was a full-breed Hyda, owning 
to the classic name of John Brown. He conducted me over a 
wide, well built plank walk to the top of a small hill, past a 
beautiful little manse, to a church. This edifice was not large, 
but was well situated, and so neatly and beautifully built that 
it was almost imposing. Within the building was a congrega- 
tion of Hydas filling every seat, some even standing in the 
aisles. It was a colourful company, but not gaudy or offensive 
to a refined taste. Families occupied their own pews, young 
men acting as ushers were seating the congregation, and the 
choir of fifteen or twenty voices occupied their places. The 
pews were very neat, the natural woodwork was well-grained 
and varnished; a fine window of stained glass in front of the 
church depicted a scene in the life of Christ. The congregation 
was well supplied with hymn books, and the choir led them 
beautifully. I preached a sermon in English, which was evi- 
dently understood and appreciated. Everything was in good 
order, and a more devout and orderly service I have never con- 
ducted. It was a real pleasure to be there. 

After the service I went down the aisle shaking hands with 
old and new friends. Very few of those whom I had met on 
my first visit, about forty-three years before, were present. 
As I came down the aisle I confronted a fine looking, stalwart 
Hyda about six feet tall, with iron-gray hair. As I went up to 
him with outstretched hand, he suddenly put out his own hand, 


236 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


palm outward, saying, ‘ Wait, wait, listen! ’ Then, while I 
halted in surprise, he began to sing. The hymn was “ Beulah 
Land.” His pronunciation of the words was not very good, 
because of the inability of those people, as well as the Thling- 
its, to pronounce certain of our consonants, such as P and B 
and M and R. He sang: 


“Tve leached de lan’ of co’n an wine, 
An all its litches wheely wine.” 


He sang in that rich, soft, melodious voice that all the Hydas 
seem to have. Then he stopped abruptly: 

“You know when I hear that first? ” 

“No,” I replied. 

“‘ You lemember maybe forty, forty-two, forty-tree year, you 
go with Skotlkah out hunting fur seals; you go way out Dickson 
Entrance to open sea. All day you hunt fur seal; at night you 
sleep in canoe twenty-five mile flum lan’. Big whales come all 
around and blow—then you hunt fur seals more. Go lan’ 
Queen Charlotte Island befo’e night; big camp, all Hydas 
camp there. Next morning Sunday. You say, ‘ This God’s 
Day; better not go hunt seal. Stay in camp; I will tell you 
,stoly about God.’ Half Hyda go hunting seal, half stay in 
camp. All day you talk, Jesus-talk. You sing. No Hyda 
know English, just Chinook. You sing, you sing. Three little 
boys, so high (indicating with his hand) come to you; all day 
you teach them to sing; you give them sugar; you feed them 
lice; you teach them sing ‘ Gulah Lan’.’” 

“Oh,” I cried, “sing the chorus! ” 

Then he began again, all the Hydas listening, and smiling: 


“O Gulah Lan’, sweet Gulah Lan’, 
As on de highes’ wount I stan’, 
I look away acloss the sea, 
Where wansions are repaired for me,” 





THE HYDAS 237 


I was looking for that word; the natives always would sing 
it like that. We could not get them to say “ prepared ”’; and 
the vision of his Heaven, a town old and worn-out, being put 
in repair to accommodate the many new applicants coming 
from among the poor erstwhile savages of Alaska, flashed be- 
fore my mind anew. The “ repaired” mansions seemed good 
enough for the poor Hydas. My heart and eyes were full. 

My memory repictured that wild camp on North Island of 
Queen Charlotte’s group—a little cove between the mossy, 
tree-covered hills and a fine little beach of white gravel; scores 
of large Hyda canoes drawn up above the tide; seal carcasses 
- and halibut, more or less fresh, lying on the beach; seal skins 
hung up in the trees to dry; tents and rude bark houses every- 
where. Little naked boys and girls running about the beach 
playing; women in blankets or in cheap calico dresses, all with 
faces painted with their peculiar cosmetics, which answered 
the double purpose of preserving their complexions and keep- 
ing away the gnats and mosquitoes. Men, half-clad, lying 
about or listening curiously to what I was saying; and the three 
little boys following me about like puppies, hanging upon every 
Chinook word I uttered and trying desperately to master the 
swinging measure of “ Beulah Land.” Then my mind went 
back farther, a couple of years, to this first visit with Dr. Lyon 
to the village of Howcan. How the wind howled up the strait 
between Dall Island and Long Island! The forest of totem 
poles that greeted us when we rounded the point, scores of 
them, of all sizes and all of different shapes, from the tall, 
eighty-foot pole which stood in front of Skotlkah’s house, the 
brown bear pole surmounted by a finely carved image of a 
“ Boston man ” with stovepipe hat, to the little plain pole nine 
feet high on which was the single carved image of a killer 
whale. A flock of gulls screeched and circled overhead, and 
the native men and women, wrapped in their blankets, came 
from their houses to stare at us. 


238 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


As we came down the beach we saw thick black smoke pour- 
ing from the smoke-holes of a number of houses. We knew 
what that meant, and that in those houses stills for making 
hooch were operating full-blast; we knew also that at the 
foot of many of those totem poles were buried the bodies of 
slaves who had been sacrificed to the spirit of the man in whose 
memory the new house had been erected. We heard the tom- 
toms beating, and singing going on, in several houses, and two 
or three medicine-men came out to stare suspiciously at us as 
we landed in front of the chief’s house. Then the scenes in the 
house during the three or four days we had spent at Howcan, 
the solemn ceremonies at feast time when Skotlkah had his 
young men cook fresh venison for us, prepare clams and huge 
boiled crabs. The speeches of welcome and of longing for a 
new life, our answers, the singing of hymns, the preaching of 
the Gospel, the forming of the first temperance society at 
Howcan, the feeble beginnings of the work that was extended 
through the years. I thought of my report concerning the five 
Hyda towns in this region; of the interest shown by the East 
in it; of my successful efforts to have a friend and cousin, Cap- 
tain J. Loomis Gould, of West Virginia, appointed as the mis- 
sionary to the Hydas; of my sending a Mr. Chapman, one of 
our carpenters, to hold the fort until Gould should arrive; of 
my return there in 1881, when I hunted fur seals with Skotlkah, 
and all the other trips I had taken to that country since, noting 
the splendid success which attended the efforts made by Mr. 
and Mrs. Gould, their sisters, and other helpers; the church, 
the school and the general progress. 

And now was the fruition of these efforts, a change so great 
as to be startling. I had been in touch with this work all these 
years and had heard especially of the new enterprise of the 
Hydas and Hydaburg, but had not realized all that had been 
done. Some two or three years before my arrival, the Hydas 
of those four towns got together in council and said, “ Let us 


THE HYDAS 239 


leave these old towns, with their community houses and totem 
poles and all the reminders of our savagery; let us take our 
sawmill, and put it up again at a new town; let us select a 
good harbour, and build an entirely new city, all of neat cot- 
tages, where we can have a government schoolhouse and a 
church, and where our children can be brought up as civilized 
Christian beings.” 

All consented, all were enthusiastic. Almost at one time the 
people of the four towns loaded their belongings into their 
canoes or into their new steam and gasoline launches and set 
sail to the new town site. A young man from Pennsylvania, 
Rev. John L. Howe, was their newly appointed minister. He 
was an expert carpenter and cabinet maker, besides being a 
very devoted minister of the Gospel. The Hydas had been 
speculating how they could get from the mission Board assist- 
ance to erect their new church; they knew that help from the 
East had been the principal factor in building the churches at 
Howcan and Klinquan; they were leaving these now, when 
they abandoned those towns, and were wondering how they 
could get a new church at Hydaburg. 

Mr. Howe called them in council and made a very sensible 
talk to them. He said: 

‘“‘T have noticed how respectful you are to your dead; how 
you have always erected memorials to your ancestors. That is 
very fitting. The white men everywhere have been doing the 
same, and in their cemeteries you will find wonderful monu- 
ments to the dead. But of late years many Christian men have 
been building a different class of monuments as memorials to 
their dead, such as churches, schools, hospitals and colleges. 
Now, why cannot you get together and build a memorial 
church in honour of your dead? One family can erect the steps 
leading to the church, another the foundation, the third put up 
the cupola, and others can erect the sides, seats, windows, and 
so on; and you will have your memorial church. It will not 


240 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


cost you nearly so much as those old totem poles, but it will 
outlast them, and will bring your people to higher heights.” 

The man who sang ‘“‘ Gulah Lan’ ” was an influential elder 
in the church, his son was a trustee, his little granddaughter 
played the organ. I was invited to dinner at his house. Such 
a neat, orderly house, plainly but well furnished, and such a 
dinner! All of native foods, but its preparation showed the 
tutelage of an experienced white cook. Not a drunken man or 
medicine-man, not a hooch-maker, was allowed within thirty 
miles of Hydaburg. A town council, alert and enterprising, 
made laws and executed them. The people were always ap- 
proaching a higher and higher type of Christian civilization. 
The Then and the Now! 

On our way back from our visit to the Hydas, Mr. Lyon 
and I ran through the noted passage called Skukum Chuck 
(Strong Water), where the tide rushes furiously like a mighty - 
river four times a day, swirling among the rocks, dashing its 
spray, and making canoe navigation impossible unless one is 
going with the tide. 

This narrow passage between Dall Island and the main 
Prince of Wales Island is navigable by small vessels, but its 
many wrecks have told tales of hazard such as few channels 
can tell. The country north of Skukum Chuck was inhabited 
by a branch of the Hanega tribe of the Thlingits who had pos- 
sessed Cordova Bay until driven away by the Hydas. Their 
chief town, Tuxikan, lay twenty miles farther north of 
Klawack and was a large village of community houses with 
totem poles in front of each house. Although living in a coun- 
try remarkably rich in natural products, these Hanegas were 
squalid, dirty and ignorant people. The tribe was large, but 
seemed to be broken in spirit by its defeats in former wars. 
We held our meetings, conferred with their chiefs, took the 
census and were kindly received. 

My reports, however, succeeded in arousing the interest and 





CHURCH AND SCHOOL AT SKAGWAY 








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THE HYDAS 241 


attention of the Board and of the Eastern Church, so that after 
several years’ delay we established what has proved to be one 
of our best and most progressive missions at Klawack. The 
old town of Tuxikan was deserted after a few years; the people 
all moved to Klawack. Now there is a neat white man’s town, 
with a large salmon cannery, a neat church and mission, a 
commodious town hall and a large government school of four 
rooms, well filled by little Hanegas. This progress had its be- 
ginning in our short visit. 


XXITI 


A BUSY YEAR 


plied; the sending of the Stickeen delegation to Sitka 

to meet that of the Hoochenoos and compose peace; the 
gathering together of what seemed to be the broken fragments 
of our mission and cementing them into something like a “ ves- 
sel of honour ”; the gathering of more girls into the McFar- 
land Home; the beginning of a Boys’ Home; the commission of 
Mrs. Dickinson as teacher to the Chilcats and sending her to 
Haines with her husband, who was to be storekeeper there; the 
pushing of our buildings to completion, especially the McFar- 
land Home—all of these kept us very busy. From early 
in the morning until late at night the people were coming to 
me incessantly. It was a time of real progress. 

But principally the “ exploration bug” was in my brain. 
There were tribes to be visited, conferred with, furnished with 
schools and missions; the Tongass and Cape Fox tribes, in 
the extreme south of the Archipelago, demanding a visit. A 
fine-looking old chief called Kashakes came in state asking for 
a mission. Then it seemed to be absolutely necessary, if we 
were successfully to solve all of our problems, that I cross the 
British Columbia line and confer with Mr. Crosby, the Wes- 
leyan missionary at Port Simpson, and especially with Father 
Duncan at Metlakatla, fifteen miles farther south. 

In June we left Fort Wrangell in two large canoes. There 
were, besides myself, Mrs. Young and our eight months’ old 
baby; Miss Maggie Dunbar and six of Mrs. McFarland’s 
larger girls; Andrew, one of our church Indians, and his wife 

242 


\OLLOWING the Hyda expedition our activities multi- 


A BUSY YEAR 243 


and Henry Haldane, a Tsimpshean Indian. Our voyage south- 
ward of one hundred and seventy-five miles was made speedily 
and comfortably. We would make an early start, spread our 
sails, and, with Sam steering my canoe and Andrew his own, 
the girls with paddles ready to help on occasion, the trip was 
one of delight. 

The Cape Fox village was almost deserted, as it was salmon 
drying time and the people were at their streams, but Kashakes 
was waiting for us and made his earnest plea. 

We stopped at the picturesque old town of Tongass and had 
quite a visit with the natives. This tribe, once very powerful 
and warlike, had been decimated, first by the wars with the 
Hydas and afterwards by the scourge of small-pox. A number 
of the old houses were deserted and fallen into disrepair. 
Many of the totem poles were covered with moss, and in two 
or three cases small trees were growing on the images. But the 
people were very anxious for a school and mission. The chiefs 
were more than willing to unite with the Cape Fox people 
and the Hydas of Kasaan and build a new Christian town. 
Mrs. Dickinson belonged to the Tongass tribe, and nearly all 
of them had gone frequently to the missions at Port Simpson 
and Metlakatla and, therefore, knew something of Christianity. 
The building of the government fort, which was erected at 
Tongass when the United States took possession of that coun- 
try, but which was soon abandoned, gave promise of comfort- 
able buildings for school and mission. 

Our visit at Port Simpson was brief. Mr. Crosby was absent 
up the Naas River with his people, who were putting up ooligan 
and salmon, but some of them, who had been to Fort Wrangell, 
were there and greeted us most cordially. Metlakatla was our 
chief objective, and we stayed there for more than a week, the 
guests of the wonderful missionary, Father Duncan. I was 
painfully anxious to see him, to ask him a hundred questions; 
to get his methods with the natives and instructions from him 


244 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


as to how to deal with them. Those were inspiring and help- 
ful days. That was where SUCCESS was spelled in large 
letters. Metlakatla was a great town, built after a style 
evolved in Father Duncan’s fertile brain. 

It was a one-man’s town. He planned every building and 
brooked no interference from outsiders or insiders, when he 
moved his Christian Indians from Port Simpson to where he 
could have them free from heathen customs, from medicine- 
men, from all old fashions and from the interference of white 
men. He laid down for them hard and fast rules on every 
conceivable subject. As for their houses, he settled upon a 
model which he thought was next to perfection for their needs, 
and compelled them to build their houses all alike after that 
model. It was a plain, square two-story house of four to six 
rooms, gabled to the street, with no porch or ornamentation. 
Alongside of each and to the rear he had them build a little 
Indian house of planks with place for open fire in the center, 
a smoke-hole in the roof, with frames for drying fish, venison, 
etc. Here the natives were to camp, prepare their food and 
clean up as they came in from their smelly and dirty camps in 
the woods. The houses were all painted alike—white, and the 
town looked like a barracks. Father Duncan explained that 
this was in order to avoid jealousy, or the boasting of one 
man’s work over another. Then the public buildings» First 
of all the church, a great cathedral built of native lumber, 
sawed in their own sawmill and constructed entirely. by the 
Indians under Mr. Duncan’s direction. It was stiff and formal, 
but majestic with its two high towers. It seated over a thou- 
sand people. A great bell in the tower assembled the people 
and woke them up in the morning, and the curfew in the 
evening sent them to their homes at proper hours. There was © 
a large fishery and the beginning of a salmon cannery; there 
was a house for cabinet making, weaving, basketry and other 
industries; there was a large council house,-a jail, a school- 


A BUSY YEAR 245 


house and a guest house, and Mr. Duncan’s own dwelling. A 
potato patch was back of each Indian house, and in front were 
small flower beds. The town was a marvel, compared with the 
physical and moral wilderness of that Northern country. 

A British gunboat swung at its anchor in the harbour, and 
there was a fine dock for the accommodation of steamboats. 
Mr. Duncan was the sole magistrate of a region as large as 
New York and Pennsylvania. The British fleet on the Coast 
was at his beck and call. He had his organized council of 
Indians, of which he was sole head. He made laws and en- 
forced them. Some of these laws were most drastic. In one he 
forbade any white man to camp on the beach within four 
miles of Metlakatla! The few occasions when whites, with 
designs on his Indian girls, had resisted this law, had resulted 
in their incarceration in jail, and the offense would not be re- 
peated. He had an armed force of native police, twenty-five or 
thirty strong, and he could, and on occasion did, send these 
police to seize men in trading schooners who were selling whis- 
key to his natives, and bring them in chains to Metlakatla. 

.Bill Stevens, one of our merchants at Fort Wrangell, had 
fallen into Mr. Duncan’s hands and had been condemned by 
him to ten years’ pena! servitude in the chain gang at Victoria. 
Bill did ‘not serve his full term, but the whiskey traders after- 
wards-gave Mr. Duncan and his police a very wide berth. 

While I knew that it would be impossible to carry out on 
American soil Mr. Duncan’s plans, yet the general idea of 
segregating the Christian Indians from their savage com- 
panions and heathen influences, and exemplifying an indus- 
trious, self-supporting’ Christian community, appealed to me, 
and I was able to put in practice many of his Metlakatla ob- 
ject lessons. His people taught our girls many things, and the 
teachers received valuable suggestions. 

I shall never forget a dramatic evening when, in front of 
Mr. Duncan’s fireplace, he recounted a conflict waged between 


246 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


himself and his Indians on the witchcraft question. It was 
after his community was established and much progress had 
been made in Christian civilization. ‘The Council had been 
organized and was in excellent working order; the president 
was one of his most reliable old chiefs. The wave of witch- 
craft excitement, which was so disastrous in Alaska, reached 
the Tsimpsheans at the Skena River and the Naas, and cul- 
minated in violence at Port Simpson. Father Duncan’s natives 
had become greatly excited. A man who was being pursued 
for witchcraft fled by night to Mr. Duncan’s house, was taken 
by him and locked up for safety in the jail. In the morning 
the Council met, without Father Duncan being present, and 
after a while a delegation of his head men came to his house 
demanding the fugitive. 


“ The case is plain,” they said. “The man has confessed. 


He is a murderer of our people and must be punished.” 

Father Duncan, standing out in front of his house, heard 
the delegation, and said to them, ‘‘ You shall not have this 
man. ‘These stories are all lies, and you ought to know them 
as such. The man will not be delivered to you.” 

They went back to the Council House. In the course of a 
couple of hours they returned, repeating their demands, but 
this time with guns in their hands. Father Duncan went out 
alone and confronted them as before. They said: 

‘We have listened to you and obeyed you; but in this case, 
where a man is a confessed murderer of his people by his black 
arts, we intend to deal with him ourselves. We demand that 
you give him up to our hands, that we may deal justice to 
him. We will obey you in everything but this.” 

“You are wasting time talking,’ Mr. Duncan replied. 
“ You shall not have this man.” 

Then at a signal all their guns came up, pointed at Father 
Duncan. “If you don’t deliver him up,” they said, ‘ we will 
kill you, and go back to our old fashions.” 


a a a 


A BUSY YEAR 247 


‘“¢ Shoot, you cowards, shoot! But, you know, if one shot is 
fired at me, from around that point will come the British gun- 
boat, and will blow your houses to splinters; your canoes and 
all your goods will be destroyed, and they will pursue you and 
catch and hang you, wherever you are. Shoot, you cowards! ” 

Down the guns went, and the people filed back to the Coun- 
cil House. Within a couple of hours they came again with 
the same demands, and more violently inflammatory speeches. 
Father Duncan calmly confronted them as before, but flatly 
refused to yield one inch. They threatened him again, and 
one of them who had a watch gave him one minute to change 
his mind, threatening him with death. He laughed at them 
and taunted them and asked them why they did not shoot. 
They went back to their Council House, and this time it was 
about three hours before they returned, the old chief at their 
head. They had their guns, but this time they were carried 
reversed, the butts foremost. The chief began: “ Our Father, 
our chief, we are fools and silly children. We are not fit to 
have guns in our hands; we have brought our guns and ask 
you to take them in your house and give them to us only when 
we go hunting.” Then they solemnly marched up and stacked 
their guns in groups and departed to their houses. The victory 
was complete, and the witchcraft excitement was quelled. 

These and other inspiring lessons were taught us by that 
fine old gentleman, who, from being a dry-goods clerk in Lon- 
don, with no knowledge of Church law or of theology, had 
dedicated himself to the work of Christianizing the heathen; 
had fought single-handed a wonderful battle at Port Simpson, 
had taught the Indians as no man before had ever done, and 
had founded the most famous mission in the world, and was 
carrying it along in his own arbitrary way, but to success. 

His advice was invaluable to me. We left Metlakatla feel- 
ing that the time had been well spent. Our return, although 
the weather was perfectly clear, was slow and tedious, because 


248 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


of the prevailing north winds. We had provisions to last four 
or five days. The time lengthened to a week, and we were 
not half-way home. Our girls showed strength only at meal 
time; the hot sun seemed to enervate us all. First our potatoes 
gave out, then our beans were consumed, then the tea and the 
coffee and flour all went. The girls dug clams and caught crabs. 
A big bald eagle caught a king salmon for us one day and had 
it on the bank until we robbed him of it. Fortunately, a 
couple of deer wandered within range of Andrew’s gun, when 
we were entirely out of provisions, and that fact saved us. 

To add to our difficulties, my troublesome shoulder came out 
again, and had to be set. Eliza, the largest of our girls, with 
the strength of the “ Powerful Katrinka of Toonerville,” set 
the shoulder, under my wife’s directions, but it slipped out 
again, and we were unable to replace it. For three days be- 
fore reaching Fort Wrangell I had to endure the pain, and 
could not aid in navigating the canoe. We reached. Fort 
Wrangell in the forenoon of the Fourth of July, and were met 
by a joyful delegation of our Indians, who had a great celebra- 
tion that day. 

The next important event of that year, 1880, was the re- 
turn, on the 8th of August, of John Muir. This was unex- 
pected by me, although he had declared his intention the 
previous fall of returning and discovering the lost glacier of 
Sumdum Bay. He had been married in the spring, and I did 
not expect that he would leave his wife so soon for another 
trip; but when the monthly steamer came in port there was 
Muir, in the same old gray overcoat. He shouted at me be- 
fore the boat touched the wharf: 

“Are you ready? Have you got your Indians and canoe? ” 

“What queer notion has struck you now?” I answered. 
“Where is your wife? Where are you going? ” 

Indignantly he replied: ‘ Don’t you know we are going again 
to Sumdum and on to Glacier Bay? Did you think that I 


A BUSY YEAR 249 


could lose a glacier and not make any fuss about it? Get 
your canoe and your crew ready, for you are going along.” 

Fortunately Dr. Corleis was staying at Fort Wrangell and 
could look after my natives. The town was peaceful and com- 
paratively sober. Neither whites nor natives were making 
hooch in the village, and the trouble-makers were absent. I 
wished to see more of the Indians, and most assuredly I 
wanted to see more of my friend Muir and his mountains. 
Our noble old Captain Tow-a-att was gone, but we took Lot 
Tyeen, old Shustaak’s successor, and his canoe. It was a 
smaller craft than the one we had used in the previous ex- 
pedition, but easily handled. For crew, besides Lot, who was 
a very strong and experienced man, we took Joe, whom Muir 
always called Hunter Joe, a stout, intelligent Stickeen, and 
Billy Dickinson, who had grown up to be a tall slim lad of 
sixteen or seventeen. A very important member of our com- 
pany must not be forgotten, my dog “ Stickeen.” Muir ob- 
jected to taking him, called him a “toy” dog, said he would 
be a nuisance and nothing else; but I was very much at- 
tached to the little fellow and persisted in taking him, although 
I had little thought that our pet would be immortalized in one 
of the greatest dog stories ever written. Instead of being a 
nuisance, he gave life to the whole trip, and so completely con- 
quered Muir that before the end of the voyage he was more 
Muir’s dog than mine; he followed him everywhere and he and 
Muir complained loudly when they were separated. 

I shall not give details of this second voyage with Muir, as 
we partly retraced our tracks of the season before, but it was 
even more enjoyable than the first trip. I did not see so many 
Indians, but had a more satisfactory and fuller view of the 
mountains and glacier. We came to Sumdum Bay, which we 
had been unable to penetrate the season before on account of 
the superabundance of ice. Muir’s words of introduction to 
this voyage, which follow, are better than any I could write: 


250 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


“ How delightful it is, and how it makes one’s pulses bound 
to get back into this reviving Northland wilderness! How 
truly wild it is, and how joyously one’s heart responds to the 
welcome it gives, its waters and mountains shining and glow- 
ing like enthusiastic human faces! Gliding along the shores 
of its network of channels, we may travel thousands of miles 
without seeing any mark of man, save at long intervals some 
little Indian village or the faint smoke of a camp-fire. Even 
these are confined to the shore. Back a few yards from the 
beach the forests are as trackless as the sky, while the moun- 
tains, wrapped in their snow and ice and clouds, seem never 
before to have been even looked at.” 

We found the Jost glacier, traced it to its lair, enjoyed a 
most wonderful communion with it, were raised into the 
seventh heaven of delight by its beauty and grandeur, and 
my crown of joy was complete when Muir dubbed the largest 
and finest glacier of Endicott Arm ‘‘ Young Glacier.” For ten 
years the maps printed my name on this glacier; then some 
aspiring surveyor, doubtless for patronage’s sake, changed the 
name to Dawes—stole my glacier! I mourned the loss silently, 
and not until the visit of President Harding in 1923, when one 
of the officials of the Department of Topography learned of 
my loss, and took the matter up with the Department, did I 
get my glacier back. 

Yosemite Bay, with its hundreds of waterfalls leaping from 
mountain sides, its polished shoulders of granite and mystic 
heights, gave us an abiding memory-treasure. Then up 
Stevens Passage into Tacoo Bay, up through Gastineau Chan- 
nel, past the present site of Juneau, across the flats, out around 
Point Retreat; leaving the country of the Chilcats without a 
visit and passing by the Auk tribes, we came again to Icy 
Strait and up to Glacier Bay. The Muir Glacier was our ob- 
jective this time, and we spent nearly a week by and on it. 
This most wonderful of all scenic objects was in its glory at 





A BUSY YEAR 251 


that time, and Muir was in his element. Leaving camp every 
morning at from two to three o’clock, he would be gone all 
day. At night I would have my Indians build a big fire of 
resinous stumps, the remains of the forest of a past age that 
had been overflowed by the great glacier which filled the whole 
bay a century before. Lot would dig out these old stumps, 
pile them together and make a big fire for Muir’s guidance. 
Sometimes he would make torches of the fattest pitch and go 
two or three miles up to the shoulder of the mountain to meet 
Muir, waving his torches and guiding him back to camp. 

This trip of ours to the Muir Glacier prepared the way for 
what was considered the greatest scenic trip in the world, and 
every season until an earthquake shook down such masses of 
ice into Glacier Bay as to block the way against all ships 
entering it, eager tourists crowded the vessels, and compelled 
the steamship lines to put on more and larger steamboats to 
enter this wonderland. 

The trip westward from Glacier Bay to Taylor Bay and 
Taylor Glacier has been so completely described by Muir in 
his Travels in Alaska and his charming dog story, and also in 
my own Alaska Days with John Muir, that I shall not retrace 
the ground. It was a fitting climax to a great voyage. 

By the time we were through with Taylor Glacier, Muir was 
feverishly anxious to get to Sitka in time to take the Septem- 
ber steamer south. He happened to remember that there were 
other things in the world besides glaciers, and that his bride 
would expect him to keep his promise to return on that boat. 
We stopped only a short time at Hoonah, then took the un- 
mapped channel up Hoonah Bay, dragged the canoe across a 
little neck of land that alone keeps the great Chichagof Island 
from being two islands, launched it again on Tenakee Inlet, 
paddled down that long unmapped passage to its mouth, thence 
southward to Peril Strait, making our visit across Chatham 
to Angoon; then, bowling before a fair wind, drenched with 


252 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


the driving rain, we paddled our way up this strange crooked 
strait, not one of our crew having ever entered it. In the early 
morning we just made the rapids where the tides met, our 
canoe swirling end for end, and finally we managed to get 
through to Salisbury Sound, thence down the coast some 
twenty-five miles to Sitka. We traveled two days and two 
nights without stopping and were very tired and hungry when 
we reached the hospitable harbour and were rejoiced to find 
that the steamer had not yet arrived. 

Two busy days ensued as we were closeted with Captain 
Beardslee and his officers, drawing sketch maps of Glacier 
Bay, the arms of Sumdum Bay, Tenakee Inlet and other in- 
lets and passages that we had explored. We also enjoyed the 
hospitality of the Lyons, Austins and our old friends the Van- 
derbilts. Muir took the steamer when it arrived, and I sent 
our crew, including Stickeen, home by canoe, while I accepted 
the invitation of the officers of the newly organized North- 
western Trading Company to go on their small trading vessel 
to the northward. Paul Schultze, treasurer of the newly or- 
ganized Northern Pacific Railroad Company, was president of 
the Northwestern Trading Company and was making his first 
round of the stations they were establishing in Southeastern 
Alaska. With him were his brother-in-law, Carl Spuhn, and 
John Vanderbilt. This voyage of nearly a month, while it was 
not a missionary or exploration voyage, was of considerable 
importance to me and to our work; it gave me a fresh knowl- 
edge of those Northern waters and the tribes that inhabited 
them. At Killisnoo, near Angoon, where the company had 
established a store and were soon to build a large herring oil 
works, I got more closely in touch with the Hoochenoos. I 
was enabled to take their complete census and confer with 
the chiefs. The trading company, realizing how destructive it 
was to the natives and to the fur traders to supply them with 
molasses for the manufacture of hooch, shut down on that 





A BUSY YEAR 253 


trade and gave an example which other traders were induced 
to follow. I held a number of meetings at Killisnoo and An- 
goon while there, and made a beginning, though feeble, to- 
wards the evangelization of that tribe. 

The little steamer then cruised up Chatham Strait to the 
two towns of the Hoonahs and afterwards up to the Chilcat 
country, where they established a large trading post at our new 
mission town of Haines. Here I contracted, in the name of 
the mission Board, with the trading company to put up a 
small building which could be used as a schoolhouse and 
church. This was erected that fall. 

The Chilcats and Chilcoots were beginning to gather at 
Haines, and old Chief Donnawuk agreed. to come with his 
people to the new town and join the movement towards Chris- 
tianity. On our return trip we stopped our vessel at the two 
towns of the Auks, and I preached to those poor people and 
conferred with their chiefs; then down Stevens Passage to the 
Tacoos again; to Sumdum and Holcomb Bay, to the Kakes 
and around to Fort Wrangell. 

During that winter I wrote many reports and penned hun- 
dreds of letters to friends in the East, urging the needs of 
Alaska. Congressmen, Senators and other influential men in 
Washington City, New York and elsewhere were written to, 
and pleas were made for some kind of civil government which 
would replace the anarchy and lawlessness of the Territory. 
Our church and school at Wrangell and the reopening of the 
mission at Sitka, with the beginnings of missions under the 
care of our partially trained natives, were the only Christian 
influences in all the Territory outside of the Russian Church 
and the small mission of Father Althorf at Wrangell. But we 
were beginning to learn the people, and they were beginning 
to learn something of our intentions, and that we were there 
for good and not for evil. We were too busy to become dis- 
couraged. 


XXIV 


REAL PROGRESS 


HE years from 1880 to 1882, inclusive, were construc- 
tive. The ten thousand heathen natives of South- 
eastern Alaska were beginning to awaken. While 
they had no definite idea of Christianity or of Christian civili- 
zation, they were learning that such things existed and were 
better than the old heathen customs and beliefs. Their pride 
in being “ Boston men ” was growing, and they were anxious 
to be recognized as on the side of the whites. Fort Wrangell, 
as the chief trading post, the principal mission and the place 
of refuge for the poor and persecuted, became the Mecca to- 
wards which all of the tribes wended their way. Many of the 
more progressive moved to Fort Wrangell, that their children 
might go to school and that they might have the protection 
and help of the missionary; especially the persecuted fled to 
us for protection. We were overwhelmed with requests to 
take and care for their boys and girls who were in danger. 
Mrs. McFarland had more applicants than she could receive. 
When mothers began to realize that Mrs. McFarland’s girls 
were happy, light-hearted, healthy, pretty and capable, they 
wished their own daughters to share the same comforts and 
pleasures. Instead of being a mere refuge, the McFarland 
Home became a high privilege, much sought after. Of course, 
there were periods of reaction and panic, but our schools 
progressed consistently. 

In the summer of 1880 Mr. J. W. McFarland, a nephew of 
Mrs. McFarland’s husband, came from Pennsylvania and was 
joined in marriage to his fiancée, Miss Maggie Dunbar, our 

254 





REAL PROGRESS 255 


teacher. Afterwards came Miss Kate Rankin as another as- 
sistant. All of the girls gathered into the Home were clothed 
from the boxes sent from the East and were taken care of 
entirely by the donations of Christian people. Of course our 
letters and reports brought this about, and our mission be- 
came one of the most popular and best supported of any in 
the denomination. 

Then the boys came clamouring for admission to the same 
privileges; little fellows who had been held as slaves, others 
who had been proclaimed as “ witches,” and still others who 
were homeless waifs, came to us for shelter. The better classes 
began to see the advantages of education and were eager that 
we accept their sons. Mrs. Young opened her Home for Boys, 
with a few lads in it, but with no funds to support it. 

Our horizon was widening, and help must be secured suf- 
ficient to meet the conditions. A school similar to our 
McFarland Home was started at Sitka by the Lyons and the 
Austins; missionaries for the Chilcats in the persons of Rev. 
Eugene Willard and his talented wife were secured; Mr. Aus- 
tin’s son-in-law, Mr. Styles, and his wife were sent to the 
Hoonahs; Mrs. McFarland’s brightest girl, Tillie Kenyon, was 
married to a half-breed, Louie Paul, and commenced work as 
a teacher to the Chilcats and afterwards the Tongass people; 
Captain Glass, recently arrived at Sitka as commander, took 
sympathetic interest in the young natives and established a 
system of compulsory education which proved to be very 
beneficial. There was a moving “ among the branches” in 
government circles in Washington City, in church circles—not 
only in one denomination but in others, among people every- 
where who were interested in the prosperity, education or 
evangelization of the United States. That this immense ter- 
ritory should be entirely neglected by all good influences was 
increasingly recognized as a shame and a disgrace. 

In the spring of 1881 I was commissioned by the govern- 


256 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


ment to collect a number of the youth of the Alaska tribes and 
take them to the Indian Training School at Forest Grove, 
Oregon. This school was a new enterprise and was under the 
direction of Captain Wilkinson, who was an officer in the 
United States Army, and who from fighting Indians had turned 
to helping, educating and Christianizing them. He was an 
intensely religious man and had conducted services on the 
street corners of Portland and other places where he was sta- 
tioned. While his enemies said that he had organized the 
school at Forest Grove in order to secure a congregation that 
could not get away, we who knew him appreciated his sterling 
worth, his common-sense methods and his burning desire to 
help the Indians of the United States. His institution was a 
smaller copy of the Carlisle Training School under the noted 
Captain Pratt. It was a polytechnic school in which the young 
Indians of all the tribes of the Northwest were gathered, taught 
the principles of the English language, and instructed in such 
trades and professions as would enable them to be uplifters 
of their own people when they returned to their tribes. 

The Nez Perces, Spokanes, Klamaths, Puyallups, Chinooks 
and many other tribes were represented at Forest Grove. I 
selected some of our most intellectual boys and girls at Fort 
Wrangell and then went to Sitka, where with the help of Mr. 
Austin and Mr. Lyon I secured more. We selected these 
young people with much care and took the brightest, healthiest 
and most promising of our young people. There was much 
opposition on the part of some parents who feared to have 
their children sent so far away, but I sailed south with about 
a dozen bright boys and girls and left them at the Forest Grove 
School. Afterwards some of these young people were sent to 
the Carlisle Training School and to other institutions of higher 
learning. It was a step in advance; and yet after some years 
of experiment we came to the conclusion that to send the 
Alaska natives to the States for training was a mistake, and 





REAL PROGRESS 257 


that they would be far more benefited if educated in Alaska 
and trained to fit the peculiar conditions of the Northwest. 

An instance will suffice to illustrate: The principal trades 
taught the young men at Forest Grove and Chemawa, where 
the school was afterwards located, were wagon making, harness 
making, agriculture and carpentry. The latter trade is useful 
anywhere, but there are no roads in Alaska, no horses and, in 
Southeastern Alaska, very little agriculture. They are a fisher 
folk; they need to learn to build boats and houses; to make 
nets, rather than wagons; and to pursue useful trades adapted 
to their own country. Our problems were so different from 
those of the missionaries among the Nez Perces that when we 
got as an assistant in our training school Silas, a young Nez 
Perce, to be our carpenter, he did not fit in well, and his term 
of employment was very short. 

One of the joys that came to us early in 1882 was the ar- 
rival of my second cousin, Captain J. Loomis Gould, from 
West Virginia. He had been a captain in the Union Army 
during the Civil War, then superintendent of schools for the 
state of West Virginia, and a prominent man in educational 
and civic lines—a man of energy, character, and initiative. © 
He was ordained a minister preparatory to his work as mis- 
sionary, and I always considered him one of the very best 
missionaries who ever came to Alaska. I went with him by 
canoe to start his work at Howcan, where I had previously 
sent James Chapman to take charge until Mr. Gould’s arrival. 
Dr. Sheldon Jackson made a trip with Dr. Corleis, bringing 
materials for buildings. A young man by the name of McLeod 
was secured by the Woman’s Executive Committee of the 
Presbyterian Home Board to put up a sawmill in order to 
procure lumber for our buildings and for the cottages of the 
natives. 

In 1880, when Muir and I had camped at the mouth of 
Gold Creek on the present site of Juneau, a mile or two be- 


258 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


yond we met Dick Harris and Joe Juneau, a couple of gold 
miners whom I had known at Fort Wrangell and who had 
come in a canoe from Sitka on a prospecting trip. They found 
gold that fall, and spent the winter of 1880-1 developing a 
claim in Silverbow Basin, a couple of miles in the mountains 
from Juneau. The gold they obtained created much excite- 
ment in 1881, and miners began to flock to the new camp. 
More placer gold was taken out, and experts came from San 
Francisco and elsewhere to examine the quartz ledges in that 
vicinity. By 1882 some large deals had been made, and the 
Treadwell Gold Quartz Mine was prospected and many ledges 
located in the vicinity. 

I had visited the new camp in the summer of 1881, and 
found that Dr. Corleis had begun an Indian mission for the 
Tacoos, who were gathered at Juneau to obtain work and to 
trade at the stores which had been established there. In 1882 
he started to build a log-cabin church, but before he finished 
this building he decided to return with his family to the States, 
and I took over his mission, finished the building and called it 
“The Northern Light Church,” the first church for the whites 
built in Alaska since the old Russian Finnish Lutheran Church 
was built in the 1840s. 

During all these days we had been besieging the govern- 
ment, through the newspapers and by personal appeals, to give 
us some sort of civil government for Alaska—to replace 
anarchy with law. Our efforts that year culminated in our 
first territorial convention. This was held August 16, 1881, at 
the new raw camp of Juneau, then called Harrisburg. There 
were only a few white settlements, but we had a delegation of 
fifteen men. Our meetings were held in a tent. Mr. W. B. 
_ Robertson, Jr., was chosen president and I, secretary. Present 
at our meeting was Governor Newell of the Territory of Wash- 
ington, who was making a tour with his family, and addressed 
our meeting. We drew up a memorial to Congress pleading 


i 





REAL PROGRESS 259 


for the establishment of civil government. It was my duty 
as secretary to set forth conditions in Alaska and our needs. 
I made the resolutions as strong as possible, and they were 
adopted. Senator George of Oregon was on the steamer on 
which I returned to Wrangell, and we went over the situation. 
The following year when I visited the East, I had a two hours’ 
talk with Benjamin Harrison, then United States Senator from ~ 
Indiana, and afterwards President of the United States. He was 
an elder of the First Church of Indianapolis, which I was ad- 
dressing. Dr. A. L. Lindsley of Portland, Dr. Sheldon Jack- 
son and others were writing and speaking in favour of granting 
Alaska civil government. These were the first earnest efforts 
to secure protection and organization for our new Territory. 
During these constructive years we were learning from our 
mistakes and beginning to understand something of the nature 
of our problems and how to solve them. One strong stand, 
which so far as I know I was the first to take, was the determi- 
nation to do no translating into the Thlingit language or any 
other of the native dialects of that region. When I learned 
the inadequacy of these languages to express Christian thought, 
and when I realized that the whites were coming; that schools 
would come; that the task of making an English-speaking race 
of these natives was much easier than the task of making a 
civilized and Christian language out of the Thlingit, Hyda and 
Tsimpshean; I wrote to the mission Board that the duty to 
which they had assigned me of translating the Bible into 
Thlingit and of making a dictionary and grammar of that 
tongue was a useless and even harmful task; that we should 
let the old tongues with their superstition and sin die—the 
sooner the better—and replace these languages with that of 
Christian civilization, and compel the natives in all our schools 
to talk English and English only: Thus we would soon have 
’ an intelligent people who would be qualified to be Christian 
citizens. 


260 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


The Board moved, at first slowly and afterwards strongly, 
in the direction of this recommendation. They relieved me 
from finishing the task I had begun of translating the Bible. 
Our ideas were adopted in the other missions. When the Sitka 
Training School, afterwards called the Sheldon Jackson In- 
stitute, was built, English was the only language used on the 
premises, and always at Fort Wrangell from the first we had 
made and enforced this rule. To our stand in this regard more 
than to any other one thing is due, I believe, the exceptional 
progress of the Southeastern Alaska natives in civilization. 
Father Duncan pursued a different plan. He himself learned 
the Tsimpshean language thoroughly, preached in that lan- 
guage the remainder of his life, and instructed the other mis- 
sionaries who came to the Tsimpsheans to do the same. The 
wonderful work which he accomplished has given him a secure 
place among the very foremost of America’s missionaries. And 
yet the fact remains that while the Tsimpsheans in the great 
mission at New Metlakatla, which he founded in 1887, and 
who still use the Tsimpshean language in their services, are 
farther back in their knowledge of Christian civilization than 
the Hydas and several tribes of the Thlingits who have had 
thirty years less of Christian teaching than the Tsimpsheans. 
These tribes have talked the English language, and all their 
young people have been educated in the language of civiliza- 
tion. 

The nature of these first years of conflict, discouragement 
and victory received a striking illustration from the pencil of 
Nature on the night of October 9, 1882. That was the night 
of, perhaps, the most wonderful display of northern lights that 
the continent of North America has ever witnessed. Every- 
where from Maine to Florida and from Alaska to Mexico the 
display of the aurora borealis was noticed and described by a 
thousand pens. The ignorant were frightened, the wise were 
puzzled, poetic souls uplifted, fanatics convinced that the world 





REAL PROGRESS 261 


was coming to an end, and the whole nation of the United 
States profoundly stirred. 

The display at Fort Wrangell had phases not witnessed in 
the Eastern states. I attempted to describe this wonderful 
display of Alaska pyrotechnics in an article to The New York 
Evangelist, and have used this description in many sermons 
and addresses, illustrating the conflict between the powers of 
darkness and those of light, between evil and good, and the 
ultimate certain victory of good over evil. I give it in the 
original form as published by Dr. Field in The Evangelist: 


Almost before the sunset glow had faded from the western 
sky, a black shadow of remarkable depth, length and density 
appeared, spanning the northern horizon. So dark was it that 
we thought it a thick mass of cloud, until we saw the stars 
shining through it with undiminished lustre. It silently grew 
until the pitchy shade extended far east and west, and towered 
high into heaven. Presently a faint glow of white light ap- 
peared above it. This increased by imperceptible degrees, and 
the huge segment of gloom slept as if it welcomed the light. 

But the peace was soon disturbed. The light began to send 
up streamers. Flashes, at first of brilliant white light then 
gathering colour, red in the east and violet in the west, increas- 
ing in brightness every second, appeared behind the penumbra, 
and even shone through the upper edge of the dark segment. 
Then the darkness awoke to its danger and gathered its forces 
to combat the light. From the east a black billow several de- 
grees in height, jagged and curling over like a wave of the 
sea, swept slowly and majestically to the west, with short 
menacing starts and motions, as if it would swallow up its 
enemy, the light. Then a return wave, higher, more rugged, 
more rapid and fierce in its motion, rushed from west to east. 
Then two surges from opposite ends of the penumbra dashed 
against and through each other, little fragments rising like 
spray into the brightness. Soon there was a startling conflict 
on this northern battlefield as these great rugged billows, solid 
in appearance as phalanxes of charging soldiers, and as violent 
and furious, rushed across the horizon, passing and repassing 


262 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


each other in their effort to annihilate the rising glory of the 
aurora. A curious hollowing out of the penumbra in front of 
each wave, and a whirling motion behind it, gave the appear- 
ance of the earth sinking beneath the squadron’s heavy tread 
and the dust rising thickly in its rear. It was a marvelous 
display, in shadow pantomime, of angry and malignant 
power. 

But the fiercer these assaults, the brighter grew the glory. 
Brilliant flashes began to appear in one part and then another 
of the corona;. then a broad blaze would flare up into the sky 
from its whole extent. The streamers grew in height and 
brightness, flashing rapidly and changing position every mo- 
ment. A rose-red glow filled all the northeast. Other colours 
appeared in different parts of the arc. Great waves of light. 
rushed from one end to the other. The commotion became 
more and more violent, the flashes more dazzling, and so sud- 
den that they resembled discharges from cannon. ‘The most 
remarkable were those that swept in a second along the whole. 
length of the corona, rising clear to the zenith in a broad flare, 
and throwing off bright coruscations on their way. So daz- 
zling were some of these bursts of light that we would in- 
voluntarily dodge and shrink as if the heavens were hurling 
thunderbolts at us; and we could easily imagine that we heard 
the roar of the celestial artillery, as the light fought against 
the darkness. It was Milton’s Battle in Heaven over again; 
swords and spears and chariots of fire striking, flying, driving 
furiously; hills and mountains hurled across the field, and 
mighty engines belching forth their flames. 

It is impossible to describe, or even to remember clearly, all 
the shifting phases and changing colours of the aurora during 
the hour in which this conflict was waged. Gradually the light 
got the mastery, the waves of darkness grew smaller and their 
motion less violent, until at last the penumbra gave up the 
struggle and slept again, shrunk to half its former size, and 
the conquering brightness suffused and almost annihilated its 
enemy. The corona became quiet also, and of a pearly white- 
ness next to the shadow, but still flashed and shifted higher 
up; the streamers grew larger, and some of them rounded in 
appearance like great horns of light. 

Our interest was centered in these streamers so boldly scal- 





AVMDVMS MONULS AGAdWVLS AHL HYHHM SGOOD ANV SWVaL HO NOISNANOD V 





VPA Ce Be rar a et 

tia gah ILS mt ee ae 

re od . 4 
] r pa 


é i 
fo Yr BT ee Pa 


q a7) 
a ree 
, ‘ 


-; %y 


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7 ap 





REAL PROGRESS 263 


ing the heights of heaven, until attention was attracted anew 
by a change in the lower body of the light. 

Almost before we looked, the pearly whiteness had become 
overspread with soft colours, and that most rare and beautiful 
phenomenon, an auroral bow, burst upon our delighted vision. 
Whether due to the moisture of the atmosphere, I know not; 
but the rainbow colours were all there, luminous with a soft and 
delicate brilliancy. It was a broad banner of triumph, an arch 
of precious stones supporting the starry firmament. 

The streamers soon began to reflect the colours of the bow, 
and to show also intermediate tints. The arc of light length- 
ened. In the east and the west, and then in the south we saw 
thin rays arise, and a white glow rimmed the whole horizon. 
But the many-coloured streamers of the north, now flashing 
almost over our heads, were far the brightest. Soon the most 
glorious sight of this wonderful night appeared. A ring of 
white light, with a dark center like the penumbra of the 
northern horizon, encircled the zenith. Flashing streamers 
lengthening rapidly radiated to all points of the compass. 
Then God began to paint this also with His colours of hope, 
until we saw a crown of glory in the heavens, a perfect circle 
with all the rainbow colours in regular order and wonderful 
perfection and beauty—a splendid centerpiece for the great 
rotunda of the sky. 

The flashing ceased. The still glory of the night grew al- 
most oppressive in its beauty and filled our souls with solemn 
gladness. It needed little imagination to see the priceless 
foundation stones of the Holy City in the northern bow, the 
attendant angels in the earnest stars, and in the central circle 
the jeweled court around the throne of the invisible Jehovah. 

Who could sleep on such a night as that? ~When the colours 
of the bow and the ring faded, other phases of the aurora de- 
manded our continued attention, and we looked and wondered 
and praised, until a beautiful sunrise closed the splendid ex- 
hibition. 


AXXV 


THE FIRE 


looking Etolin Harbour, and was a large, plain but 

rather imposing structure. It was almost filled with 
native girls, and Mrs. McFarland and her two assistants—Mrs. 
J. W. McFarland and Miss Rankin, Mr. McFarland as handy- 
man, medical adviser, etc-—had their hands full of multifold 
duties. The church was growing and its influence widening. 
Shakes and Kadishan, our influential chiefs, were invited to 
Portland by Dr. Lindsley for a visit, and on their return im- 
pressed the people with their account of the number and power 
of our friends. Everybody wanted to be on the right side 
of the missionaries, and the prospects appeared very bright. 

I was using every effort to teach the people self-help. I 
got the Council to establish a Poor Fund for the care of the 
old and friendless. This fund was maintained by fines, as- 
sessed by the Council upon offenders, and also by the con- 
fiscation on several occasions of goods unjustly stolen accord- 
ing to ‘‘ old fashions.” One instance of this will suffice: 

Johnson, a Tacoo sub-chief, had a sister who was the wife 
of a Stickeen, Sam Tahtain. She was dying of tuberculosis. 
One day a little girl of Sam’s was walking across the floor of 
a room in which the sick woman lay. The child was carrying 
a large pitcher full of water. She stumbled and fell, smash- 
ing the vessel with great noise. Very soon afterwards the sick 
woman died. Johnson brought charges against Tahtain’s 
family, claiming thirty blankets as indemnity, on the ground 
that the girl by her noise killed his sister. Speeches of violence 

264 


P “HE McFarland Home for Girls stood on the hill over- 





THE FIRE 265 


in front of the several houses and shame talks culminated, 
before I knew what was going on, in payment by Tahtain’s 
family of the thirty blankets. This, of course, was sheer rob- 
bery, and a reversal to the old heathen customs, which we were 
trying so hard to put down. 

I went to Johnson’s house and demanded that he return the 
blankets. He sullenly refused. I took Matthew with me; we 
gathered up the blankets and took them to Shakes’ house, ask- 
ing him to call a meeting of the Council. When it convened, 
I was present with all the head men of the tribe and especially 
the members of the Tahtain family, which was a branch of 
the Shakes family. In a speech I set forth the evil of robbing 
one another on such pretexts and demanded that those who 
had donated blankets should take back their property. There 
was general refusal on the part of the donors. 

“We are ashamed to take back that which we have given.” 

“Very well,” I said. ‘“ We need a good donation for the 
Poor Fund.” 

Turning to Matthew and Aaron, I ordered them to take the 
blankets to my house; we would sell them and use the proceeds 
to take care of the poor. This proposal caused great uproar 
and excitement. 

“Why should we give our blankets to the poor? ” asked the 
Stickeens. 

Johnson was angry. I said, ‘‘ Those of you who wish to 
take back your blankets are entitled to them, but those which 
are not taken will go to my house as I have directed.” 

Shakes and the Council signified their approval. About 
one-third of the blankets were reclaimed, the rest went into 
the Poor Fund. 

The beach surrounding Etolin Harbour had long been a dis- 
grace to the town. In going to the Stickeen town we had to 
step around and over dead dogs, fish and other offal and all 
kinds of filth. When the tide was high the way was almost 


266 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


impassable. I called the Stickeen Council together and ad- 
vised: 

‘‘We must build a board walk from the native town to the 
stores and also to the church and the McFarland Home. The 
natives will have to do this themselves, as I can get no money 
for that purpose from the mission Board. It is time you were 
improving your town, at any rate. What will you donate to 
buy the lumber? ” 

I myself gave a donation, Shakes seconded, and the rest 
followed. Soon we had in blankets and cash upward of 
$300.00. This meant considerable self-sacrifice, as the people 
did not handle much money. 

It was the middle of winter, but notwithstanding the weather 
we organized an expedition to go to the sawmill at Chican, 
sixty miles away, to get the lumber. Shakes, Kadishan, Mat- 
thew, Konanisty and one or two others proffered their big 
canoes and a crew for each one. We started about February 
first. The weather turned very cold for that region and 
reached a temperature of zero. We sailed down Sumner 
Straits and around Point Baker and duly arrived at Chican, 
and there purchased two-inch planks and substantial scantling 
for their support, filling our canoes to capacity. Head winds 
retarded the progress of our heavy canoes homeward, but on 
the evening of the eighth of February we put into a cove on 
Etolin Island, some fifteen miles from home. Early in the 
morning of the ninth our little fleet moved slowly out of its 
harbour and steered towards Fort Wrangell. On rounding the 
point, eight miles from the town, we were dismayed to see a 
great cloud of black smoke enshrouding the mission hill. Full 
of heavy forebodings, we plied oar and paddle with all our 
might. By the time we reached our home harbour we dis- 
covered that the house of our pride and joy—the McFarland 
Home—was burned to cinders. A discouraged and _heart- 
broken company of missionaries greeted us with tears and 





THE FIRE 267 


lamentation. The work of years seemed destroyed in a mo- 
ment. While we rejoiced to know that none of the inmates 
of the Home was injured, yet we found that very little else 
had been saved from the wreck. Most of the goods were de- 
stroyed as well as nearly all of the furniture. 

Busy days of letter-writing and of making new plans fol- 
lowed. We gathered the girls into the hospital building of the 
Fort, a few of them returning temporarily to their homes. 
There seemed to be but one thing to do, and Mrs. Young and 
I determined upon our course. Personal appeal must be made 
to the Church in the East, and money obtained to rebuild, as 
well as funds to establish a training school for boys. I took 
the next steamboat, the latter part of February, to Portland. 
There, backed by Dr. Lindsley and his family, I secured cloth- 
ing and supplies sufficient for the temporary relief of the mis- 
sion, and the promise of further aid. 

I attended the spring meeting of the Presbytery of Oregon, 
and was elected Commissioner to the General Assembly, which 
was to meet at Saratoga, New York, in May. I obtained from 
the Secretary of the Board permission to take my family East 
on a vacation and to spend the coming summer among the 
churches in furthering our great plans. I secured passage for 
Mrs. Young and our two small children on the steamer ‘‘ Idaho,” 
planning to meet them at San Francisco, that we might go on 
east together. In San Francisco and Oakland further sub- 
stantial aid for our Alaska missions was obtained. I spent 
an anxious fortnight waiting for my family there. The time 
for the arrival of the “‘ Idaho ” passed, and there was no word; 
the time for the General Assembly approached, and I could 
not wait. For nearly a month I was in terrible anxiety, as 
news had come, first, that one of the British steamboats—a 
possible conveyance for my family—was burned; and then a 
telegram from Victoria announcing that the “ Idaho” had been 
wrecked in Peril Straits. Not until I had been in Saratoga 


268 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


for some days did I receive word that Mrs. Young had taken 
passage on a steamer which was sent as a rescue ship when 
the ‘‘Idaho” failed to report. No cable was laid to Alaska in 
those days, and very few boats plied the northern waters. 
Discouraging reports made the round of the papers, and it was 
with intense relief that the last days of the Assembly brought 
a dispatch from my wife, dated at San Francisco, announcing 
her arrival in the East the next week. 

That General Assembly was a momentous one for Alaska. 
I was only a very green, unsophisticated and badly scared mis- 
sionary from the wilds of the Northwest, but I was enthusias- 
tically received when I ventured on the floor of the Assembly, 
and the measure passed by the Presbytery of Oregon which I 
presented was adopted, constituting the Presbytery of Alaska. 
Reverends J. Loomis Gould, J. W. McFarland, Eugene Wil- 
lard, John G. Brady, Dr. Sheldon Jackson and myself formed 
the Presbytery, and I was its Convenor and first Moderator. 
This consummation of the plans gave us a secure status be- 
fore the Church, and Alaska began to be one of the most 
popular and romantic of the home mission fields. 

Tourists were just beginning to learn of Alaska and to wish 
to explore it. Many writers, mostly women, made trips from 
Portland to Fort Wrangell and Sitka and back, on the same 
steamer, and then wrote books on Alaska. Only two or three 
of them deigned to stop off between steamboats. Dall’s book 
and a few of the earlier publications on Alaska, all of them 
full of mistakes, were copied by these tourists, and their own 
imagination added to the errors. To write a book on such a 
country as that, after having made only this one hasty trip, 
would be like publishing a volume descriptive of the Metro- 
politan Museum when the author had only scanned the build- 
ing from the outside and turned back at the entrance. Only 
one or two of these books survived more than a year or two. 
Of these early writers only Mrs. Ella Wilkinson, who returned 





THE FIRE 269 


again and again to Alaska, lived a while in the Territory, and 
was careful as to her data, has produced a volume that is 
really valuable and will be read for decades. 

Dr. Henry M. Field, editor of The Evangelist, came to 
Saratoga especially for me, and I spent five great days in his 
home at Stockbridge in the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts, 
and was entertained also in the palatial residence of David 
Dudley Field. While I enjoyed these visits, my greenness and 
lack of sophistication in those days was almost beyond belief. 
I did not know how to act in polite society. But my writings 
in The Evangelist had given me prestige, and I began to be 
in demand as a speaker before churches. 

My wife, children and our Indian girl, Susie, soon arrived, 
and after a few days at her former home at Whitehall, New 
York, we launched into our campaign for the aid of Alaska 
missions. Big projects were in our plans and hearts. A con- 
stant whirl of social and church activities kept us busy; a 
series of missionary conventions in New York, Pennsylvania 
and New Jersey, with trips as far east as Rhode Island and 
as far west as Chicago, and south to West Virginia and Ken- 
tucky, kept us speaking almost daily. The response of the 
churches was more than we anticipated. The Board had to 
put on the brakes. The cry which has been heard throughout 
the churches ever since was then first raised: “ Alaska is get- 
ting too much.” 

Money came for the rebuilding of the McFarland Home, for 
the Sitka Training School, for Mrs. Young’s Thlingit Training 
Academy for Boys at Wrangell, for the purchase for our school 
of the Pennsylvania farm (mentioned later in this chapter), 
for the support of children at the separate schools and for all 
the equipment we would need to carry on our missions. Dr. 
Sheldon Jackson was actively at work in the lecture field, and 
others, also, seconded our efforts. My wife carried by storm 
many important meetings of women’s missionary societies, and 


270 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


money in plenty was thrust at her for our enterprises. My 
good wife had a peculiar talent for oratory. She possessed one 
faculty I always envied her. When I allowed my feelings to 
overcome me in a pathetic passage, my lips became paralyzed, 
and I could not say a word. But Mrs. Young could go right 
on with her speech, with tears flowing down her face and her 
whole audience dissolved. ‘The saying of Horace, “If you 
wish me to weep you must first weep yourself,” was exemplified 
in her case, and money always followed her tears. 

An important visit was made by us to Washington City that 
summer. We did not succeed in seeing President Arthur, but 
met several heads of departments and did our part towards 
securing civil government for Alaska. Reporters interviewed 
us, Senators and Congressmen came to see and hear us, and 
thus we exerted considerable influence. At Washington we 
succeeded in securing government aid for our Thlingit Train- 
ing School, which enabled us to carry on that institution on a 
larger scale until we left Alaska in 1888. 

A visit to Carlisle Indian School must not be forgotten, as 
it put us in touch with the government system and led to the 
education of a number of our brightest youth. There was a 
visit to my parents and to other relatives in West Virginia, and 
the leaving of our Indian girl, Susie, at the girls’ school in 
Washington, Pennsylvania. 

We returned to Alaska in December, 1883, very tired but 
very happy in the fact that we had secured the necessary funds 
to carry on our work on a much larger scale than before. 
Then followed a time of reconstruction and advancement. 

Largely through the influence of Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the 
McFarland Home was removed to Sitka and merged into the 
Training School there. J. W. McFarland and his wife were 
sent to the Hoonah village as missionaries; Miss Lyda 
McAvoy, my cousin from West Virginia, was secured as 
teacher at Fort Wrangell, and Miss Anna Chisholm as house- 


i 
{ 
. 





THE FIRE 271 


keeper for our training school. When Mrs. McFarland was 
removed to Sitka, those of her girls who refused to go with her 
were enrolled in our school at Fort Wrangell. The log buildings 
which had constituted the barracks/of the soldiers were fitted 
up as machine shops, dining-room, dormitory for the boys, 
and hospital building for the girls. A farm nine miles from 
Fort Wrangell on the delta of the Stickeen River, which had 
been equipped with buildings as a mule ranch to accommodate 
the pack trains of the Cassiar region, was purchased for five 
hundred dollars and.called the Pennsylvania Farm. There our 
boys raised potatoes ‘and other vegetables and fodder for our 
cows and horses, and it became a very helpful part of our 
equipment. Hand and foot machines for our cabinet shop, tools 
for our shoemaker shop, a printing press, farm tools, etc., were 
procured. My brother, James W. Young, was employed as 
our farmer and mechanic, andthe school progressed. Our 
new printing press was set up, and the publication of our 
school paper, The Glacier, begun. 

I still had the work of exploration\and founding of new 
missions before me and of procuring teaclters for the missions. 
However, for the first time I felt that we were well equipped 
for the constructive work of civilization. | 











XXVI 
CIVIL GOVERNMENT 


citizens forms one of the gloomy pages of American 


‘he struggle of Alaskans for their rights as American 
history. The beginning of Alaska’s early history 


reminds me of echo’s answer in the old poem to the word : 


‘“‘ Matrimony ”—“ matter o’ money.” After a struggle be- 


tween contending companies, the Alaska Commercial Company ~ 


got the lease of the fur seal islands. They paid the United 
States government three hundred thousand dollars annually 
for the privilege of killing as many fur seals as they wished. 
While there were government rules and instructions, these did 
not seriously hamper this company, which made millions of 
dollars out of its lease and wished, of course, to continue the 
arrangement indefinitely. United States Senator Miller of 
San Francisco was the president of the company. Like the 
old Hudson’s Bay Fur Company of England, they did not 
wish the country to be settled and the way made plain for 
rival fur companies to come in and compete with theirs. They 


employed every means to discourage the settlement of Alaska 


and even the education and enlightenment of the natives. 
They opposed all attempts in Congress to organize Alaska and 
grant us protection of life or property, courts and officers. 
The wilder and more lawless the country, the more furs for 
them, was the old cry. 

It was evident that this company employed several men at 
good salaries to “ write down” the country and decry and 
belittle its resources. As early as 1868 efforts were made in 
Congress to provide some sort of rule for Alaska. Proposi- 

272 


] 
: 
J 





CIVIL GOVERNMENT 273 


tions were made to annex Alaska to Canada, to annihilate 
time and space by making it a county of the territory of Wash- 
ington, to sell it to a private company, and other absurd sug- 
gestions. 

For twelve years no bill for the government of Alaska was 
discussed on either the floor of the House or Senate in Wash- 
ington. The fur company had its way. Among the writers 
employed by the company, Henry W. Elliott (‘“ Fur Seal” 
Elliott) was the most notable. About 1874 he submitted a 
report as special treasury agent, in which the information on 
fur seals is valuable, but when it touches upon any other in- 
terests of the Territory, it shows either dense ignorance or 
design to fool the American people. Dr. Jeanette Nichols in 
her history of Alaska gives a number of quotations from his 
report which would be amusing if they had not been so dis- 
astrous in their effect upon the development of Alaska. It 
was Elliott’s judgment that climatic conditions would always 
“unfit the Territory for the proper support of any considerable 
population.” He says: “‘ There are more acres of better land 
lying now as wilderness and jungles in sight on the mountain 
tops from the car windows of the Pennsylvania road than 
can be found in all Alaska.” 

In an article in Harper’s magazine in reply to criticism upon 
his report, among other mistakes, he says: 


“ Though we know now that Alaska will’never be, in all hu- 
man probability, the land for us, yet we have one great comfort 
in its contemplation, for we shall never be obliged to maintain 
costly mail routes or appoint the ubiquitous postmaster there. 
We shall never be asked by the people for a territorial form of 
government with its attendant federal expenses; and, much as 
the Coast looms upon the map, we shall never have to provide 
lighthouses for its vacant harbours.” 


Although these assertions of Elliott’s were denied by William 


274 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


G. Morris, special agent of the treasury, and others, yet they 
shaped public opinion and also blocked our efforts for legisla- 
tion in the interest of Alaska. The noted Alexander Stephens 
of Georgia is reported to have bluffed Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who 
was attempting to secure his interest and aid in providing 
civil government for Alaska. The little, old statesman, crippled 
and hobbling upon his cane, paused long enough to cackle a 
deriding laugh in the face of the little doctor of divinity, who 
was about of the same height. 

“Huh! ” sneered the Senator. ‘That snowbound wilder- 
ness—not enough white men there to make a decent county— 
never will be,” and hobbled on into the Senate. 

But after our Indian war at Wrangell, the discovery of gold 


at Juneau brought crowds of eager miners, the establishment of 


many salmon canneries and other fisheries, and especially of 
missions and schools. The pressure upon Congress to afford 
relief to the inhabitants of the Territory compelled action. I 
have spoken of the First Territorial Convention at Juneau and 
of my interview with Senator George and Senator Harrison, 
and the personal efforts on the part of Drs. Lindsley and Jack- 
son and others in this direction. The situation in Alaska was 
anomalous, the Alaska Commercial Company fighting us at 
every point. The Government Bill passed in the winter of 
1883-84, while very incomplete and faulty, was at least a step 
towards giving us our rights. An organic act was passed, and 
a government and laws for Alaska adopted, based on the Or- 
egon Code, but amended and shaped to fit the idea of Congress 
that Alaska was not and never would be capable of supporting 
any considerable population or of providing any great means 
of wealth. The Bill did not call Alaska a territory, but a 
district. It provided a governor, a judge, a marshal, a dis- 


trict attorney, a clerk and four United States commissioners - 


and deputy marshals. Schools were provided for to a very 
limited extent, the importation or manufacture of intoxicating 





CIVIL GOVERNMENT rye." 


liquors was prohibited, mining laws were instituted and, at - 
least, a beginning made of civil government. 

Senator Harrison, the chairman of the committee which 
framed the organic act, excused its inadequacy by pleading 
that this form of government would bring to the residents of 
the Territory and their homes “ reasonable protection of life, 
liberty and pursuit of happiness.” Therefore, in the summer 
of 1884, came our newly appointed officers. Dr. Nichols truly 
says: “In 1884 Alaska became a political preserve for the 
payment of small debts owed by big politicians to little ones.” 

The first Governor was J. H. Kinkead, who had been gov- 
ernor of the state of Nevada, but was considered a “ worn-out 
political hack.” It was freely said in Washington that his 
political friends had sent him to Alaska to get him as far out 
of the way as possible. Governor Kinkead was a very hard 
drinker, as his bulbous nose indicated. He brought with him 
an immense supply of cases labeled ‘‘ Canned Tomatoes.” 
These “tomatoes ” were proclaimed as tasting exactly like 
Scotch whiskey and producing the same effect. His duties as 
Governor were so limited that beyond a report of eight and 
one-half pages there is no record of any of his acts. 

The judge was Hall McAllister, the nephew of the noted 
Ward McAllister of the “ four hundred” in New York City. 
This young man, who was a lawyer in San Francisco, and ap- 
pointed through the influence of the Alaska Commercial Com- 
pany, was of the newly discovered species, ‘‘ Dude.”” He made 
his Uncle Ward his model, and closely followed that arbiter 
of fashion in his manner, his dress, his flourishes and all his 
actions. The whole government and all its acts seemed so 
farcical that beyond furnishing amusement to both friends and 
enemies of the Territory, within and without, it did nothing. 

The fall of this government, whose officials were appointed 
Va _by President Arthur, deserves a paragraph: Dr. Sheldon Jack- 
‘son remained at Sitka the winter of 1884-5. The quarrels be- 


276 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


tween him and the officials became more and more acute. 
When President Cleveland was inaugurated, these Republican 
officials still hoped to serve out their term of four years. Dr. 
Jackson, in an unguarded moment, voiced his provocation by 
saying that he was going to Washington on the next steamer 
and was going to have all the officials turned out of office, and 
new ones appointed. To prevent this they laid a scheme. 
They connived with Captain Carroll of the monthly steamer. 
Dr. Jackson had secured his passage and was ready to board 
the boat, when Marshal Hillier sent a deputy to arrest Dr. 
Jackson on a charge of misappropriating Russian property. 
He marched him up to the guardhouse and kept him there 
until the steamer moved off. One or two of the officials sailed 
on that steamer, thinking thus to checkmate the little doctor; 
but it was the mistake of their lives. The doctor was promptly 
released from jail after the steamer sailed. Rev. Eugene Wil- 
lard, who was at Sitka, possessed a photographic camera. Dr. 
Jackson took Mr. Willard to the guardhouse, sat down on the 
bare floor and posed in dejected attitude with his chin on his 
hand, while Mr. Willard “ took ” him. 

Dr. Jackson sailed on the next steamer and went to Wash- 
ington, taking this picture with him. It was published in 
Church and other periodicals with headlines: “ Persecuted for 
Righteousness’ Sake.” President Cleveland was besieged with 
demands that the Alaska officials be removed, and they went 
out awhirling, in spite of the fact that the great Ward McAl- 
lister appeared before the mission Board secretaries in New 
York, dressed immaculately and gently swinging his jeweled 
cane: ‘“ Me nephew Hall is a good boy, don’t ye know? He 
didn’t mean any harm to your work. Won’t you, now, be good 
fellows, and let him serve out his term? ” 

The fates, or bad liquor, pursued President Arthur’s ap- 
pointees even after they left Alaska. The governor broke his 
arm and had a paralytic stroke, and soon died. The district 


CIVIL GOVERNMENT 277 


attorney fell off the train and was killed. The other officers re- 
tired to private life, Judge McAllister resuming his practice of 
law in San Francisco. 

In the spring of 1885, President Cleveland replaced these 
officers with a full set of Democrats. Governor Swineford of 
Michigan was a much brighter and more active man than Gov- 
ernor Kinkead. He had a mind sufficiently alert to compre- 
hend something of the possibilities of the great Territory. 
Throughout his term he laboured for more liberal laws and 
fairer treatment of Alaska. He attacked the persistent and 
venal misrepresentations of Alaska by the Alaska Commercial 
Company and the big fishing interests. He was the first gov- 
ernor to advocate a territorial legislature and the freedom of 
American citizenship for the settlers. He showed that the 
census taken in 1886 was faulty, underestimating by one-half 
the civilized citizenship of the territory. He did justice to the 
fine character of the miners and other settlers who were moving 
into the Territory; he advocated better land laws, increased 
transportation facilities, better rights for the poor fishermen 
and miners. He was opposed to big monopolies. When his 
term of office expired he returned to Alaska as editor of a paper 
in Ketchikan and made the Territory his home until death. 
He took the part of the schools and missionaries, and was for 
a number of years.an active and progressive friend of Alaska. 

The judge“appointed by Cleveland was the occasion of the 
worst scandal in the history of Alaska officials, except that 
which gathered about Judge Noyes of Nome in 1900-1. The 
judge (Judge Dawn) was a kind of political and social roust- 
about. He had been in turn doctor, preacher and lawyer, 
without taking the trouble of fully educating himself in any 
of these professions. He was appointed by President Cleve- 
land on the recommendation of Democrats in Salem and Port- 
land, Oregon. After his appointment, one of those who had 
signed his petition wrote to President Cleveland protesting 


278 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


against the appointment, and claiming that the petition was a 
sort of joke, signed by him and others to get rid of the appli- 
cant, without any thought that it would be successful. This 
drew from President Cleveland the famous letter in which he 
scored unmercifully those who knowingly endorsed unworthy 
applicants for office: 


“How can you expect the President, 2,500 miles distant, to 
know more about the qualifications of an applicant for office 
than you who are on the ground? All the President can do 
in such cases is to trust to the honesty and good judgment of 
the endorsers. If the appointee is unworthy, those who recom- 
mended him must bear the odium, and not the President.” 


Judge Dawn came to Sitka on the same boat with Governor 
Swineford and the other officials. During the interval between 
the arrival of the boat which brought them to Alaska and the 
next monthly steamer, Judge Dawn suddenly appeared with 
two white companions at Wrangell, having come from Sitka by 
canoe. He was entertained by our mission and made a very 
pious address to the boys and girls of our training school, ex- 
horting them to be good Christians and to fit themselves to 
be good American citizens. He instructed a young man who 
had been appointed deputy marshal to proclaim the court 
opened every morning and adjourned until he should return. 
Then he launched his canoe again, steering for Port Simpson 
in British Columbia. He took with him as.a traveling com- 
panion an Indian girl, who had been in our school; his two male 
companions being in like manner provided with young squaws. 
Thus he disappeared forever from the knowledge of the 
Alaskans. The reason for his sudden departure was revealed 
when the next steamer arrived, for it brought a United States 
marshal from Portland with a warrant for the arrest of Judge 
Dawn on the charge of embezzling fifteen thousand dollars 
from his father-in-law. Thus we were left without judge and 
without court. 





CIVIL GOVERNMENT 279 


The man whom President Cleveland appointed in Dawn’s 
stead was Judge Dawson of Missouri, an intimate friend of 
Senator West’s. He was an excellent lawyer and a just judge. 
But he was a heavy drinker. Senator West had him appointed 
in the hope that away off in prohibition Alaska he would be 
weaned from his bad habit and become what he was capable of 
being—a very influential and helpful citizen, able to shape the 
needed legislation for Alaska. With the exception of his in- 
temperance, Judge Dawson seemed to live a moral life. Yet 
when saloon-keepers were brought before him and tried for 
infraction of the liquor laws, he would first mete out full jus- 
tice, and sentence them to pay large fines; then he would step 
down from the bench and go and drink liquor over the bar of 
the very man whom he had fined. 

The citizenship of Alaska at that time was fluctuating. 
Those who had been in Alaska any length of time and who 
could be called permanent citizens were mostly squaw-men, 
who had gone up the coast as miners or fishermen and lived 
there with their Indian women and half-breed children. The 
prejudice of these men against the natives can be illustrated 
from an incident which occurred at Fort Wrangell a year or 
so after the arrival of the Democratic administration: 

Louie Paul, who married Mrs. McFarland’s brightest pupil, 
- Tillie, and had assisted her in her schools at Klukwan and 
Tongass, was employed by a man named Bangs who came to 
Alaska on a trading schooner. They sailed down to Klawack 
on the West Coast. One night Louie came to my house in 
great excitement. He had returned on the schooner, which 
anchored a mile or two down the coast from the harbow. He 
reported a theft committed by Bangs at Tuksekan, the town 
of the Hanegas near Klawack. Bangs had looted the cache of 
an Indian chief and had stolen large quantities of blankets, 
boxes, guns and other Indian property, and had these goods 
on board his vessel. I took Louie at once to Captain Wilson, 


280 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


our deputy collector of customs, and he proceeded to arrest 
Bangs and put a crew aboard the vessel, and take the prisoner 
and his loot to Juneau for trial. When court convened at 
Juneau the case was tried, and although the Hanega chief was 
present and identified his goods, and the testimony of Louie 
Paul was very clear and positive, the jury refused to bring in 
a verdict of guilty against a white man on Indian testimony. 
Judge Dawson, in a scathing speech, reprimanded and dis- 
missed the jury, and directed Bangs to return all the stolen 
goods and to pay the chief his expenses, and also the govern- 
ment for the expense of the trial. This was a specimen of 
the justice meted out in those formative days. 

The minor officers—the commissioners, customs collectors 
and marshals—averaged much better than the higher ones. 
The commissioner appointed by Cleveland was Judge James 
Sheakley, a Democrat, from Mercer County, Pennsylvania. 
He had been an applicant for governor but was put off with the 
lesser office. He was a guest in our house for two or three 
years at Fort Wrangell, a very genial, pleasant, honourable 
gentleman, who fretted at his petty office, but did his duty to 
natives and whites and was a steadfast friend of our missions 
and schools. With the other Democratic officials, he lost his 
position when President Harrison was inaugurated, but when 
President Cleveland was reélected in 1892, Mr. Sheakley came 
back to Alaska as governor. He was undoubtedly the wisest 
and most progressive governor the Territory had had up to that 
time. Our customs collector at Fort Wrangell who succeeded 
Colonel Crittenden was Captain Wilson, a very fine man and 
very helpful to our mission work. 

Alaska has had many governors and judges since those old 
days. In 1900 the Territory was divided into three judicial dis- 
tricts, and afterwards a fourth was set apart. The higher of- 
ficials at first were all brought to Alaska from the different 
states, but after the Klondike, Nome and Fairbanks gold 





CIVIL GOVERNMENT 281 


stampedes, a white population settled permanently in Alaska, 
and from its citizens the officials have been mostly chosen—an 
improvement on the old carpet-bag system. 

After a long continued struggle against bureaucracy, selfish 
politicians and ignorance concerning Alaska affairs on the part 
of the American people, and the denser ignorance of Congress, 
we succeeded in obtaining an elective legislature. Now Alaska 
is a full-fledged territory, well organized, with good laws well 
administered. And it is steadfastly setting its face towards the 
ultimate goal of statehood and the development of its vast re- 
sources. , 

With the establishment of civil government in Alaska, came 
the appointment of Dr. Sheldon Jackson as the first Commis- 
sioner for Alaska under the Bureau of Education. The ap- 
propriation for schools was very small at first, but increased 
year by year. Schools were established all over the territory 
in the native tribes, and these government schools from Hyda- 
burg to Point Barrow have been of immense benefit to the 
whole Territory. The first teachers were nominated by the 
various mission boards, who were doing Christian work in the 
regions where the schools were established. Thus a semi- 
religious character was given to these government schools, and 
a number of the teachers in them have become regular mission- 
aries in different parts of Alaska. 


XXVII 


THE WORST SAVAGES 


HIS chapter is not a pleasant one, but is a story that 
must be told. A former chapter has stressed the de- 
basing influence of savage life, in which men are cast 
adrift from the refining influence of home, church and good so- 
ciety to float in lawless regions among lower races. The follow- 
ing instances, while extreme, can hardly be called exceptional. 
So many such cases came under our personal observation that, 
although always shocked by them, we ceased to be surprised. I 
have come to the conclusion that there is but one moral safe- 
guard for a man who is cutting loose from all the ties and re- 
straints to which he has been accustomed, and that is religious 
faith and principle. 

When I first reached Alaska I used to hear of the Karta Bay 
Copper Mine on Prince of Wales Island in the Hyda country. 
The superintendent of the mine, which was being worked in 
a very desultory and trifling way, was a large fleshy man named 
Bill I. He was from Portland, Oregon, and represented a 
Portland mining company. He would come to Fort Wrangell 
for supplies, and soon the report came out that the mine had 
been abandoned; but Bill had not left the country. When Mr. 
Lyon and I made our first trip to the Hyda country in 1880 
we found Bill at Klawack, and much against our will, on ac- 
count of his filthy appearance, we were induced to give him 
passage back to Wrangell in our canoe. My wife, after an ex- 
amination of the blankets we had loaned Bill for the trip, in- 
sisted on the use of blue ointment and sapodilla powder on 
them. She pronounced the blankets “ inhabited.” 

Mr. I. remained at Wrangell but a short time, and then we 

282 





THE WORST SAVAGES 283 


heard of him living down among the Tongass people, just 
across the line from Port Simpson. A squaw was with him and 
other members of her family. We heard that he had a few 
barrels of molasses and was trading molasses and hooch to the 
Indians. We also heard that the revenue officers had learned 
of his illicit trade and had tried to arrest him, but he got wind 
of the raid and vanished. When the officers disappeared he 
returned to his cabin and resumed his trade. 

A year or two afterwards there came to Fort Wrangell a 
well dressed, fine appearing man whose name was James I. 
He was the brother of Bill. He came to Wrangell to find his 
brother and transact some important business with him. He 
inquired of me and of the commissioner concerning Bill’s 
whereabouts. Being entirely unused to canoeing and somewhat 
afraid of the water, he got me to send a couple of my Indians 
in a fast canoe with a letter to his brother. The trip was at 
least a hundred miles. He urged his brother to come to Wran- 
gell as speedily as possible and get through with this business. 
While James was waiting he told me the character of the busi- 
ness; that he and his brother were the sole owners of some 
swamp forest lands on the Columbia River, and he had come 
to induce Bill to return with him and effect a large sale of 
those lands. Both partners must appear in any legal transfer 
of the property. 

In course of a week there came to the dock a queer outfit. 
There was big Bill in a flannel shirt with untrimmed beard, 
_and with him his squaw, her mother and father and two or 
three other relatives. James and I were on the dock watching 
the canoe come in. Jim was fairly white with anger and dis- 
gust. He turned, walked up to the Custom House and asked 
me to bring Bill along. I did so, and was present at the inter- 
view of the two brothers. James explained to Bill the situ- 
ation, saying that there was a chance of making a fortune of 
at least half a million dollars. “But you know,” he said, 


284 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


“that I can’t draw up these papers and complete this transac- 
tion without you. You’ll have to come with me at once to 
Portland—and our fortune is made.” 

Bill heard him through and then said: “I can’t go. I have 
my business here. Fix it up some way. I can’t leave.” 

James swore an oath, and then apologized to me for it. He 
asked me, ‘‘ What business has Bill? ” 

“ Well,” I answered, ‘‘ I haven’t been to his establishment, 
but I understand his business is that squaw you saw and a 
barrel or two of molasses, and a hooch still.” 

Then James “turned-to” and gave his brother about the 
worst overhauling I have ever heard, reminding him of their 
respectable life in Portland, their education and the good so- 
ciety he had left. ‘If you are bound to live a fast life,” he 
said, ‘“‘ surely you can gratify your desires among the whites in 
Portland, and go your pace there. Leave this filthy environ- 
ment here and come with me. My future and that of my fam- 
ily, as well as your own, depends upon your returning with me 
on the next boat.” 

Bill listened stolidly and then suddenly got up. ‘“ Fix it up 
as you please,” he said, ‘I am going back to Tongass,” and 
he strode from the room, went down to his canoe and set sail. 

It was less than a year after that when Captain Carroll of 
our monthly steamer heard that Bill was very sick at Tongass. 
He put into the harbour there and found him dead. He took 
his body to Portland for burial. 

In my hunting trips I had gone with my boys in our canoe 
down to the vicinity of what is now Ketchikan on Gravina and 
Annette Islands: I found a man on the site of Ketchikan who 
was called “ Mac ” by the natives and whites. He had a gar- 
den in a cove and a salmon saltery by the salmon stream, which 
is now occupied by a big canning establishment. He had a 
young Stickeen squaw with him. Mac’s house was small but 
well built and clean. He was putting up an excellent quantity 





THE WORST SAVAGES 285 


of smoked and dried salmon and of cured venison hams. He 
used to come up to Wrangell afterwards, bringing these articles, 
and I always bought some from him. He would ask for read- 
ing matter, especially The New York Evangelist, one of the 
church papers. He told me that this was his home paper and 
that he was a member of the Presbyterian church in his home 
city. After getting his reading matter and trading his com- 
modities he would fill up on hooch and go back to his abode. 

A couple of years before I left Fort Wrangell, there came to 
my attention, as postmaster, a letter addressed to Mr. D. On 
inquiry I learned that this was the real name of our friend 
Mac. I forwarded the letter to him by the first canoe. A 
month or two afterwards I got one of the finest, best written 
letters I have ever received, from a lady in the Eastern city 
which Mac had named as his home. This letter was from 
Mac’s wife. She said she had learned that her husband was in 
the vicinity of Fort Wrangell. She had got my name from 
her pastor, and was writing me in hope of obtaining news of 
the whereabouts of her husband and establishing communica- 
tion between them. She said: “I hear that he has gone rather 
wild; but he has been a good and loving husband to me, and 
he was very fond of our three children; and I wish you to urge 
him to come back to us. I have never ceased to love him, and 
his children are waiting to honour and love their father. I en- 
close a letter to him.” 

I sent her letter and a copy of the one she had written to 
me, and also a strongly worded letter of my own down to 
Mac. He made no reply to me, but I found in the mail that 
he answered her letter. Several letters passed between them, 
and I had hopes that he would be reclaimed, would break away 
from his present environment and go back to his family. But 
still he continued living with his young squaw, and occasionally 
got drunk on hooch, and it was even said by the natives that he 
was making the stuff. 


286 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


So passed the time, until one day there came in the mail a 
registered package marked from Mrs. D. directed to her hus- 
band, and valued at one hundred and twenty-five dollars. I 
hated to forward this package, but my duty as postmaster com- 
pelled me, and I sent it on to him. In a month or two I heard 
of a big potlatch down the beach at what is now Ketchikan, and 
free gifts of blankets, beads and hooch were distributed to the 
Indians; and I then knew that the money which his wife had 
sent him to pay his passage back to New York had been spent 
by this renegade in a big potlatch for his squaw and her rela- 
tives. 

I had not told Mrs. D. of Mac’s squaw, but I was sorry 
now that I had not done so. It was a hard task to write the 
truth at last to this good woman in the East, and I shall never 
forget the heart-broken letter she wrote in reply. 

One more of these gruesome stories, and I have done. The 
winter of 1903-4 my daughter Alaska and I spent at Council 
City, eighty-five miles east of Nome. Council was a mining 
camp near the mouth of Ophir Creek, a rich gold-bearing 
stream. We had an Eskimo congregation as well as one of 
white miners. We had built a church and had a lively mis- 
sion. I had brought with me a small box of books, standard 
works of general literature. The miners used to borrow and 
eagerly read these books, which I was glad to lend. There 
used to come to see me, and get my books, an Englishman. 
He was dressed in English fashion, with knickerbockers; he 
was always spruce looking and was very intelligent. He could 
discuss almost any question of art, science or literature. My 
daughter and I enjoyed his occasional visits. He informed us 
that he was living down Fish River, eight or ten miles from 
Council, and developing a gold claim. Our acquaintance with 
this young man was very pleasant and continued during the 
winter. 

Towards spring, an order from the government had come to 





THE WORST SAVAGES 287 


Nome, and the judge there had published this order, which was 
to the effect that all white men living with native women must 
legally marry them, under penalty of heavy fine and imprison- 
ment if they disobeyed. They were not allowed to leave their 
squaws without fully providing for them. 

The commissioner at Council and those of all the other towns 
were ordered to see that this law was enforced. A number of 
the backwoodsmen came with their Eskimo squaws and were 
married. 

One day my young English friend came to my house. He 
knocked and was admitted to where we were sitting. Pres- 
ently came a very fat and homely Eskimo squaw, who sidled 
in to the house and squatted down on the floor in a corner of 
the room. We did not connect the visit of the two at all, but 
supposed the squaw had simply come, after their fashion, for 
some favour. 

After chatting a while the young man said: 

“Dr. Young, I wish you would do me a favour.” 

“TJ shall be glad,” I answered. ‘‘ What can I do for you?” 

“‘T want you to marry me to this woman.” 

I started up, aghast. ‘‘ You don’t mean what you say! 
Surely you don’t wish me to marry you to that squaw? I shall 
not be a party to a crime like that. You, an Englishman of 
high education and standing, and I understand a younger 
brother of an English lord, to ‘mate with a narrow forehead ’ 
like that is scandalous! ” And I quoted some Tennyson to him. 

“Oh, I have gone over all that in me mind, ye know,” he re- 
plied. “ And I have made up me mind. I don’t want to leave 
here, nor do I want to go back; so I am asking you to marry 
us according to the law.” 

“Never,” I replied. “If you want to commit an outrage 
like that upon yourself and your family and upon all decency 
and manhood, you will have to get somebody else to tie the 
knot; I will not do it.” 


288 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


So he went over to the commissioner, and was united in mat- 
rimony with that squaw. I suppose that was the last of him. 

Now, these cases, disgusting and displeasing though they 
be, are worthy of consideration. The fact that the most 
vicious, degraded, ruined and hopeless savages I ever met in 
Alaska were educated white men from refined homes, does not 
prove that human nature is hopeless, or that all white men who 
go to a country like that fall in the same way. That would be 
far from the truth. There was something wanting in the char- 
acter of all these men, something weak, something ignoble. 
These vices are not natural but unnatural; and for every case » 
of this kind that occurs to my memory I could relate dozens of 
cases of truth, fidelity and manhood, especially among the min- 
ing populations of later years. 


XXVIII 


NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 


compilations of the Thlingit and Hyda legends. In 

selecting a few of the thousands of stories which the 
natives of two generations ago were so fond of spinning, I am 
- not going to quote from any of these books, but shall rely en- 
tirely upon my recollections of the tales related to me first- 
hand. : 

Old Kah-tu-yeatley, the wizard whose pitiful story I have 
told, was the first to give me in detail the story of Yeatl (the 
Raven) and other legends, during the time that he was confined 
to the little room in which I placed him for protection. He had 
been the conservator of the Thlingit ceremonies and songs and 
director of cremations and potlatches, and his mind was full 
of stories. With Mrs. Dickinson’s help I got from Kah-tu- 
yeatley the story of Yeatl in the most complete and graphic 
form and printed it in one of the early numbers of The Glacier. 
Kadishan afterwards told more of these stories during our long 
voyages, when we were scudding before the wind, our captain 
steering, and the rest of us huddled in the center of the canoe 
absorbing them. Stickeen Johnny, Hunter Joe and Hyda Paul 
Jones, also, were anxious to tell these legends, and I was just 
as eager to hear them. After we had partaken of our supper 
in camp we would sit on logs around the big fire and the yarns 
would be resumed. 

It is not an easy task to collect and write these stories. 
Each Thlingit you consult has a different version of every 
story, which he strenuously defends as the only correct one, de- 
nouncing all others as impositions. And one often finds the 

289 


A NUMBER of books have been published which are 


290 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


vital point of the story to be the very one on which the nar- 
rator’s memory fails, and another person has to be consulted, 
or else the teller supplies the deficiency with a palpable inven- 
tion of his own. Incidents of one story are often transferred 
to another, causing confusion, and one can hardly be certain 
when he is right. Sometimes after filling a page with notes, the . 
searcher after legendary lore will suddenly find himself all 
adrift, and the story he was pursuing escaped clean. It was 
like the Irishman’s flea: “‘ You put your finger on him, and he 
isn’t there.” However, I think that I have obtained the most 
general and ancient versions of these legends, as they are 
known to the Stickeens. 


First PRINCIPLES 


The Thlingits personified almost everything. The beasts, 
birds and fishes had human souls and semi-human bodies, the 
power of speech, passions and habits of the human race. Even 
the trees and bushes had their hamadryads, or resident spirits, 
with loves and hates. Their legends make the inferior animals, 
in the age before the great rising of the tide which submerged 
all things, to antedate man. The first person in human form 
was a god who is known by several names: Keese-she-sa-ah 
Ankow (lord of the tides), Kees-du-je-ae-ity Kah (the man 
who manages the tides), Yu-kis-ko-kaek (he who looks after 
the tides). In all these names the dependence of this maritime 
people upon the sea is shown. 

Some authorities say that Kees-du-je-ae-ity Kah made all 
the animals and trees; others that he came into existence in 
some unexplained way at the same time with them. He created 
a wife for himself, and a sister, with her husband. They were 
the only people who existed on the earth. The animals and 
trees conversed with them. The lord of the tides was im- 
perious and haughty, jealous of his absolute sovereignty. He 
made a league with the trees to destroy his nephews as they 


NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 291 


approached manhood. His sister bore many sons, but always, 
when old enough, their uncle would send them into the forest 
to fell trees for making canoes. 

One was killed by a tree shooting its chips violently into 
his face; another was caught by the branches of a falling 
tree and crushed to death; another was impaled by a sharp 
splinter. A fourth was set to hollowing out a log for a canoe, 
but when he had almost completed it, and was inside, the 
log broke the sticks used for spreading it apart, and squeezed 
out his life. 


THE BIRTH OF YEATL 


The sister of Kees-du-je-ae-ity Kah was in despair. The 
death of all her sons filled her with sorrow. She wandered 
along the beach, waking sad echoes by her pitiful wails. One 
day, while she was weeping alone, Tluk, the Crane, came to her 
and asked: ‘“ Why do you cry so constantly? ” 

“For my sons,” she replied. ‘‘ My brother’s cruel jealousy 
has slain them all.” 

Then the Crane, filled with pity, brought her a small, round, 
black stone, worn smooth by the tides, and bade her heat it 
red-hot in the fire, and then swallow it. 

“You will have a son,” said he, “who shall have the 
endurance of the stone and the vital heat of the fire.” She 
obeyed, and in due time the wonderful Yeatl was born. 
He was a very precocious child, and developed with great 
rapidity. 

YEATL AND His UNCLE 


Kees-du-je-ae-ity Kah was suspicious of his nephew from the 
first, and planned his destruction. When Yeatl was old enough 
he was sent, as his brothers had been, into the woods to fell 
trees and make canoes. With his greenstone ax he boldly at- 
tacked the great red cedars. The malignant trees shot their 
chips like arrows at him, but the hardness of the stone was in 


292 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


his flesh, and the chips fell harmless to the ground. A huge 
splinter from a wind-riven stump darted at him like a giant’s 
spear, but was blunted and broken against him. The tall cedar 
toppled over on the other side from that to which it leaned, and 
fell upon him, but he tossed it aside as if it were a straw, and 
cut it into the proper length for a canoe. When he had hol- 
lowed out the log, and spread it by stout thwarts, that he might 
finish it inside with his stone adz, his uncle jerked out the 
thwarts, causing the canoe to spring back and catch Yeatl in 
the crack, and triumphantly walked away to his house thinking 
that the boy would certainly perish. 

But Yeatl spread the log with his hands as if it were moss, 
and sauntered carelessly into his uncle’s house. The old man 
was boiling water in a huge basket, woven of the fibers of 
spruce roots. He did this by heating great stones red-hot, and 
putting them into the water. Furious at Yeatl’s escape from 
the canoe, he seized him and plunged him into the steaming 
basket, clapped on the lid and boiled the boy all day. But 
Yeatl had two flat charm stones given to him by his unfailing 
friend, the Crane. These would keep him cool under all cir- 
cumstances. So he enjoyed his bath, and when the lid of the 
seething cauldron was lifted, he jumped nimbly out and went 
to the fire, rubbing his hands together in the blaze, and saying 
to his uncle, “ It is very cold in that basket; let me warm my- 
self by your fire.” 


One must always remember that the Thlingits and the Hydas 
had no written language, and these tales are pure traditions. 
Dr. William Henry Green, my Hebrew professor, used to talk 
about “ the vivid oriental imagination of the Hebrews.” The 
Thlingits are also Orientals, belonging to the same ethnological 
family as the Jews. Their fancies would always run away 
with them, and often the original story would disappear into 
pure invention. 


———— a 








NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 293 


THE CREATION OF MAN 


The earth was a dreary, desolate waste of rock and moun- 
tains and sand. Yeatl created the trees and grass, and all 
plants to clothe the naked earth with beautiful garments. He 
flew to mainland and islands, and worked until all were cov- 
ered with green forests. Then he resolved to make man in the 
likeness of his own original form. He took stones, and said to 
them, “Stand up; take shape, and walk as men.” They obeyed, 
but when they walked they rolled awkwardly from side to 
side, being heavy and unwieldy. Yeatl was not pleased, and 
cried, “‘ Lie down again.” They returned to stone. Then he 
took the lichens, hanging in festoons from the branches of the 
trees, and of this material he fashioned the first of the human 
beings, who thus got their lithe forms, and swift, light motions. 

Another form of this legend says that after Yeatl had made 
man out of stone he reflected that the race he had newly created 
would partake of the hardness of the rock and thus be im- 
mortal; and therefore he caused them to return to their original 
form, and then made man of the lichens, that he might be 
perishable, and the world not be filled too full. 


How YEATL Got THE SUN AND THE Moon 


The world was dark—only the dim cosmic light existed. 
There was no distinction of day and night. Nothing was 
clearly visible. Yeatl was wandering about once in search of 
food, when he came to the mouth of a river, and found a num- 
ber of beings called Tat-tu-quany (Night People), fishing. He 
asked them for some fish, but they refused. He begged and 
then threatened. They answered, “ We are not afraid of you; 
you have not the sun and moon; you cannot make day and 
night.” By this Yeatl understood that the Night People were 
afraid of the light, and dreaded the liberation of two objects 
called the sun and moon. By inquiry he found out that an old 


294 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


chief called Tat-je-ae-ity Kah (the man who keeps the night) 
had the sun, moon and stars closely shut up in boxes in his 
large house. 

Yeatl set his wits to work to obtain them. The lord of 
the night had a grown daughter. Yeatl saw her make fre- 
quent visits to a certain spring for water. He made himself 
into the form of a spruce needle, floating with other needles 
on the water. When the girl came as usual for a drink she 
swallowed Yeatl. Thus she became with child, and in due 
time gave birth to a son. 

The old woman who took care of her, looking at the baby, 
said, “‘ His eyes look very much like those of a raven.” The 
lord of the night came and looked, and said, “‘ Yes, he has 
Yeatl’s eye, indeed.” Yeatl heard and trembled, but held his 
peace, and the old people had no suspicion of his identity. 
Yeatl grew rapidly, and became a spoiled and wilful child. 
Whatever he wanted he cried for and got. His grandfather 
doted upon him and humoured him in everything. The boy 
cried for the box that held the moon. His grandfather was 
loath to give it to him, but could not stand his yelling, and so 
yielded. Yeatl opened the box, and the moon escaped to the 
sky, causing great consternation among the Night People. 

Then the spoiled youngster cried for the box of stars, and 
after a delay, during which he drove his mother and grand- 
parents distracted by his screams, he got it, and presently let 
loose the stars. Last he began to cry for the sun. The lord of 
the night set his face like a flint, and held out a long time, but 
the boy made such a hullabaloo, rolling on the floor, shrieking 
and screaming, that his weary grandfather was forced to put 
the precious box into his hands, watching carefully, however, 
to see that he did not open it. Yeatl waited for his chance and, 
suddenly assuming his bird form, he flew up through the high 
smoke-hole of the great house, with the sun in his claws. The 
lord of the night called to his Yake, or familiar spirit who 





NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 295 


guarded this avenue, and the spirit grappled with Yeatl, but 
could not hold him. 

The triumphant bird pursued and caught the fleeing moon 
and stars and, shutting them up in a box with the sun, went to 
the Night People and again asked for fish, and was again re- 
fused. He opened the box a little way, letting out a flood of 
light. The Night People were frightened, but still refused to 
yield their fish. Then Yeatl opened the box wider and set the 
sun, moon and stars to whirling in the heavens. The Night 
People, with screams and cries of terror, leaped in all directions 
to escape. Some sprang into the forest and became bears, 
wolves, deer and other animals; some plunged into the sea and 
changed to seals, otters, beavers, frogs; some leaped upward, 
and became birds of the air. 

Thus the animals were formed, and most of them still love 
the night and retain their fear of the sun. 


How YEATL Got FIRE 


The world was cold and dreary. Its inhabitants had no 
fires. The principle of heat did not exist in the flint or in dry 
wood. But far out in the Pacific Ocean, when the sun’s rays 
slanted, on calm mornings and evenings, fire shot up towards 
the zenith, and the surface of the sea showed a long path of 
flame. Yeatl saw the fire, and longed to get its heat for his 
shivering human children. He knew that he was not equal to 
the task of procuring it, and besides he was afraid of the risk 
to his precious long beak. He went to several birds, especially 
to those that had long bills, such as the crane and the plover, 
and tried to persuade them to go after the fire. But they were 
afraid and would not go. The screech owl, Kug, was a large 
snow-white bird with a very long beak, and was very swift of 
flight. He had a merry, lilting song, and was always whistling 
and singing. Yeatl visited him and began to flatter and 
wheedle him. “ Uh-kah-ny” (my brother-in-law), he said, 


296 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


“you are very strong and swift. Will you not fly out to sea 
and get fire for the inhabitants of the land? ” 

“T cannot,” said the Kuq, “I am afraid. The fire would 
burn my beautiful nose.” 

“ Oh, no,” answered Yeatl. “ You shall not be harmed. If 
you lose your bill, I will get you another and a better one.” 

The owl at last consented to make the attempt. Yeatl made 
a torch from splinters of resinous wood, and bound it firmly to 
the owl’s long beak. When the fire shot up from the sea Kuq 
flew boldly out and, lighting his torch, turned back towards the 
land. Then his troubles began. The wind, in his swift flight, 
blew the dark smoke from the burning pitch backward and 
stained his white plumage brown. The fire began to scorch his 
beak before he got half-way to land. He would have thrown 
the torch into the sea, but Yeatl had bound the faggot so firmly 
along his bill that he could not loose it. The flaming pitch 
flowed around his cherished nose and burned it shorter and 
shorter. Yeatl, perched on a dry spruce on a high point, 
bobbing up and down in his eagerness, called from the shore, 
“Uh-kah-ny, Klukday, Klukday!” (Brother-in-law, make 
haste! ). 

When the owl got to the land there was nothing left of his 
torch but one live coal, and his long bill was burned off close 
to his head. Yeatl took the coal, and kindled a big fire with 
it. Then he struck the fire into all wood and moss, where the 
principle of heat has remained ever since, so that people have 
been able to procure fire by striking flint, and by rubbing sticks 
together. 

When the owl clamoured for his lost nose, Yeatl hunted up a 
devil-fish (nauk) and took his very short, curved, strong beak 
and, fixing it upon the owl, said: “ There, you have a much 
better nose than the one you lost.” But Kuq was not satisfied, 
and the other birds laughed at him; so ever since he has hidden 
in the dark forest for shame, and the blow to his pride shrunk 


NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 297 


him in size until he is now only a small brown bird, and he 
comes forth only in the night, when he may still be heard 
plaintively bewailing his lost pride: ‘‘ Uk-kloo-o0-00-nuh Kut- 
sku!” (my beautiful nose! ). 

The screech owl is still gullible, and when you hear him at 
night wailing and moaning, if you will go out and hail him and 
hold up the bill of a crane, or even a stick shaped like a bill, 
and call, “ Here Kuq, don’t cry. Here is your beautiful nose,” 
then you will hear him laugh: “ Ha, ha, ha, ha!” Try it the 
next time you hear him wail. 


Various ADVENTURES 


Although the creator of man and the most important per- 
sonage of the later deities of the Thlingits, Yeatl was often re- 
duced to great extremities, and had to resort continually to all 
kinds of tricks and subterfuges to satisfy his insatiable appe- 
tite. He was a great fraud, and the applause with which the 
Thlingits receive the stories of his tricks shows a sad lack of 
appreciation of the sinfulness of deceit. Here are some of the 
minor adventures: 

Yeatl once got very hungry for fat. He saw a huge whale 
(yie) floating like an island upon the sea and diving into its 
depths. The sight of such an endless amount of blubber filled 
him with longing. He applied to Shiatle, the fishhawk, to catch 
the whale, but the fishhawk said, “I can do nothing with such 
a monster.” 

Then Yeatl conceived a bold scheme. He took pitchwood 
and flint, and hovered above the whale watching his chance. 
When the whale spouted Yeatl flew right in at the ‘“ blow- 
hole.” Down into the cavernous stomach of the monster he 
made his way and, kindling a fire, began to fry out the oil and 
gorge himself. Many days he spent thus cooking and eating, 
and grew very large and fat. However, this treatment did not 
agree with the whale, who sickened and died. But Yeatl had 


298 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


grown so fat that he could not get out by the breathing vent, 
through which he had entered so easily. The whale drifted 
ashore. Yeatl shouted and cried for help. The people who 
flocked to the spot to get the blubber wondered at the noise 
made by the dead whale. With their knives they cut a hole 
through the skin of the great cetacean, but were surprised at 
finding no blubber, until Yeatl flew out, and mocked them from 
a secure height upon a tree, with his derisive “ Caw, caw! ” 

Yeatl gave the leopard seal his spots in this way: He saw 
the great fat father of all the seals sunning himself upon a sea- 
girt rock, and as usual began to covet his thick coat of fat. 
He took a piece of spruce gum in his hand and, approaching 
the seal, began to cajole him. After complimenting him on his 
size, strength, swiftness and beautiful silver colour, he said: 
“There is only one defect about you, and that is your short-. 
sighted eyes. Now I have here some medicine that will make 
your sight more perfect than that of any other creature.” His 
design was to blind the seal with the gum, and then kill him 
and eat him. But the wise seal suspected his purpose, and 
when the raven tried to stick the gum on his eyes he dodged. 
Yeatl made many attempts, but always missed the eyes of the 
lively seal until the ball of gum was all gone—distributed in 
little dots here and there all over the seal’s body. These are 
the spots which are still found on all his descendants. 


THE ORIGIN OF MOSQUITOES 


While mosquitoes are not felt in troublesome numbers on the 
islands of the Coast, they amount to a terrible plague in the 
valleys of all the rivers or in any part of the interior, and the 
farther you go north the worse they are. The origin of these 
pests is as follows: 

In ancient times there existed a very strong man having the 
superhuman power of Samson in Sacred Writ, or Quasind in 
the story of Hiawatha. Like them, this giant could do incred- 











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NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 299 


ible things, such as darting great spruce trees like arrows to 
long distances, uprooting tremendous boulders and rolling them 
from the tops of mountains into the sea to become tree-covered 
islands, pushing aside the opposite rocky points of an island, 
dividing it into two islands and making a passage for his canoe, 
and many like feats. But, unlike Samson and Quasind, the 
Thlingit giant was very cruel and bloodthirsty. His most 
coveted food was the hearts of men, and his sole drink, their 
blood. All men dreaded this giant, and many plans were laid 
for his destruction, but it was found that he was invulnerable. 
Arrows and spears rebounded from his hide without harming 
him. It was known that he could be killed if his heart could 
be located, but where that organ existed was not known. At 
last, the place of the heart was found out in this way: 

A man, pretending to be dead, lay down on his blanket on the 
beach, holding his breath as he saw the giant approach. The 
monster felt of the man’s flesh and found it still warm. Then 
he began to exult and roar, “I will eat his heart and drink 
his blood.” He lifted up the man, who was limp, and let his 
head sag as if he were dead. The giant took him home and 
laid him down, departing to whet his knife and procure vessels 
for the blood. Immediately the man jumped up and seized a 
bow and arrow. The son of the giant came into the house just 
then, and the man pointed the arrow at the boy’s head saying, 
“ Tell me where your father’s heart is, or I will kill you.” 

The frightened boy answered, “ In his heel.” 

When the Indian Achilles returned, the man, who had con- 
cealed himself, shot his arrow through the giant’s heel, and the 
monster fell down in the convulsions of death. But before he 
died he roared: ‘“ Though you slay me, yet will I devour you.” 

The man assembled his friends, and they tore the giant’s 
house to pieces, making a great pyre, on which they laid the 
huge body, saying: “‘ We will burn him to ashes, and see then 
how his threat can be fulfilled.” 


300 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


At the feast which followed the cremation the man took a 
handful of the giant’s dust and threw it into the air, exclaim- © 
ing: ‘ How, now, will you eat us up, O you giant? ” 

Immediately the dust of the giant sprung into life, and thou- 
sands of mosquitoes flew on the men, to drink their blood. And 
ever since the giant has been devouring his human enemies. 


The Hyda legends are more delicate and graphic than those 
of the Thlingits, and always have a moral attached to them. 
Their story of the peopling of the earth is one which has been 
graphically written in many a stone or wood carving of the 
Hydas. The lord of the tides was a man in shape, but lived 
a lonely life on the beach, digging clams and catching crabs 
for food. He longed for companionship. 

The clams in those days were huge fellows, some of them 
as large as a canoe. One day he was walking disconsolately 
along the beach when suddenly he heard a peculiar noise. It 
was a happy sound in different tones; it would burst out, and 
then there would be an interval of silence. At first he thought 
it was made by the laughing gull or a duck chuckling to her 
brood, or the piping of the little ducks or that of the sand 
piper. A great clam shell lay on the beach, but it was shut. 
While he was looking at it, suddenly it opened, and he heard 
happy laughter. Looking inside, he saw a row of baby boys 
and girls in the shell. He had a paddle in his hand and put it 
between the shells before they had time to close; then he 
gathered out the babies and took care of them until they grew 
up; and that was the way the Earth became peopled. 


THE GIRL IN THE Moon 
Our Hyda girl, Susie, told us this story, which was told to 
her by her grandmother in rebuke of an ugly habit she and her 
sisters had of sticking out their tongues at their elders when- 
ever they were prevented from doing what they wished: 





NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 301 


The Moon had a plain white body without a spot on it. He 
was known to be prowling about the earth to catch somebody 
and take him or her into the sky for companionship. There 
was a bad little Hyda girl who was saucy and naughty and 
used to mock her grandmother by sticking out her tongue at her. 

“You had better not do that at the Moon, or he will come 
down and get you,” she said. 

Of course, this acted as a suggestion to the naughty child, 
and made her want to do the forbidden thing. One clear night 
she was sent out to a stream near by to get a basketful of 
water; she was lugging it home when suddenly she looked up 
and saw the Moon, and stuck out her tongue at it. Quick asa 
flash, the Moon came down and seized her. 

She struggled, and caught hold of a tuft of grass that grew 
by the path to hold herself down, but the moon was too strong, 
and took her up into the sky and fixed her upon his breast. 
There you can see her—a little girl with short, ragged dress, 
tresses flying, a tuft of grass in one hand and a basket with 
drops spilling out of the other. Susie said that she often 
wished to stick her tongue out at the moon, but was afraid he 
would come and get her. 

Of course, many of the legends were gross and vulgar. 
Often when story-telling time was on in an Indian house and I 
would try to get at the reason for the laughter that arose, they 
would refuse to tell me, instinctively knowing that the story 
would not please me. However, the assertion which I have 
heard frequently repeated that the native legends and even the 
carvings on the totem poles all had a hidden obscene meaning, 
is untrue. Most of the legends are clean and sweet, and 
can be wrought up into innocent stories for children, as has 
been done by one or two authors. The foul meaning is gen- 
erally given to these legends out of the obscenity in the 
prurient mind of the man who makes the assertion. 


XXIX 


LAST YEARS AT FORT WRANGELL 


‘ , YITH the establishment of civil government for 
Alaska and the progress of the Thlingit Training 
Schools at Wrangell and Sitka, our work was 
simplified, in some respects, and complicated in others. No 
longer did the missionaries have to act as judges in civil and 
criminal cases, except in the outlying tribes. But at the same 
time with the transfer of such authority to the courts and com- 
missioners, came the harder work of inducing the people to 
change their mode of life and adopt the white man’s way of 
looking at things—to do what was right and decent for con- 
science’ sake. I still had to make many canoe trips to different 
parts of the Archipelago to install and instruct our native help- 
ers, and make and carry out plans for the construction of civ- 
ilized Christian villages instead of the old community houses. 
On account of our longer experience, the missionaries at Fort 
Wrangell had to act as instructors of the new and inexperienced 
teachers and missionaries who arrived from time to time from 
the States. Some of these were very green, indeed, people 
from city life who knew nothing of such conditions as those in 
which we had lived, and who were unable to adapt themselves 
to the Alaskan environment. While most of these new- 
comers were excellent, earnest and adaptable, there were some 
whose experiences were both ludicrous and lamentable. Before 
the organization of civil government and government schools 
the mission Board began to send missionary teachers who were 
supposed to establish schools and hold religious services until 
regularly ordained ministers should come. 
302 





LAST YEARS AT FORT WRANGELL 303 


As the number of inmates of our training academy at 
Wrangell increased, there was greater necessity for laying in 
supplies of food. During the winter months the cod hooks, 
the herring rakes and the trolling hooks for king salmon were 
always employed. Our boys enjoyed life to the full when it 
was their turn to fish or to fill a canoe with crabs and clams. 
We invested in a herring net, which also served to seine salmon, 
and we had trawls for codfish, halibut, flounders and sea bass. 
At the proper seasons we took squads of the older boys and 
girls to Salmon Bay on Prince of Wales Island, or to Anan on 
the mainland, and put up large quantities of salt and dried 
salmon. We cured codfish and halibut, also. Herring we 
could always get fresh. In the spring, during the “ month of 
herring spawn,” we went to the proper beach, ten miles from 
Wrangell, cut and cast into the water, at low tide, spruce and 
hemlock branches, and drew them forth at next low tide, hung 
heavily with millions of herring roe. These branches were 
hung up to dry, and during the whole year the spawn, boiled 
and of snowy whiteness, formed one of the dishes most prized 
by our Indian children. Great quantities of blue berries, salal 
berries, red or black currants, naygoon, salmon berries and 
other small fruits were gathered, canned, dried or pressed into 
cakes for winter’s use. Reference must be made to expeditions 
to the gravel flats of the Stickeen River for the famous “‘ soap 
berries,” that strange fruit which must be dried and then 
beaten up until it forms a froth, which looks like pink ice- 
cream, but tastes very differently. 

In the fall of 1884 Mrs. Young made a visit to Portland, and 
she returned with a fine team of horses, a couple of cows, some 
pigs and a few sheep for our Pennsylvania Farm. The cows 
were the first that had been at Fort Wrangell, and they filled 
the natives with admiration, or with terror, according to their 
degree of sophistication. Our black and white Holstein, gentle 
as a kitten, scared almost to death old Snook, the famous Stick- 


304 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


een bear hunter, who would stand up to a brown bear and kill 
him with a spear. This cow was feeding in the gateway of the 
Fort, and I was sitting in my office, when I heard a terrible 
hullabaloo—some one shouting, “ Uheedydashee, uheedydas- 
hee, Uh ankow, uheedydashee ” (Help me, help me, my chief, 
help me! ). 

I thought that some one was being. killed, and rushed out, to 
find old Snook dodging behind a stump outside the Fort, scared 
to death. When I asked him what the matter was he shouted 
in terror, “ Drive that thing away, drive it away! ” I put my 
arm over the neck of the cow, saying, ‘ Why, Snook, this is a 
showat wusoos (woman cow). She won’t hurt anybody.” 

But Snook replied, “‘ Oh, she know Boston man, but she does 
not know Siwash.’”’ And he would not stir from his stump 
until I drove the cow away. 


But the Indian children, as well as our own, enjoyed the 


milk, as they also enjoyed the potatoes, turnips, cabbage, cauli- 
flower, carrots, peas and other vegetables raised on our farm. 

The fall hunts were the chief events of the season. During 
my visit East and also by means of articles in our school paper, 
The Glacier, and in Church papers, I had set forth our need of 
good rifles and shotguns. Breech-loading rifles were just com- 
ing in vogue. We received as presents old Enfield and Sharps 
rifles, and a little later a good 45-.75 Winchester rifle. We ob- 
tained three or four excellent breech-loading shotguns. ‘The 
natives of Alaska not being allowed to possess breech-loading 
guns at that time, our weapons were a delight and wonder to 
them. During all of the fall months we were sending to the 
farm for various viands. The usual order was for a sack of 
potatoes, a sack of turnips and.a sack of ducks. Pennsylvania 
Farm was the gathering place for millions of ducks, and geese, 
and our boys were good hunters. I must be indulged in two 
or three hunting yarns: 

On one occasion my brother was alone at the farm with the 


a 


LAST YEARS AT FORT WRANGELL 305 


exception of one of the boys, whose name was “ Shawnish ”’ 
(Old Father). The boy was so dull and stupid that it was 
hardly worth while to keep him at school, so he was, kept at 
the farm. But dull though he was, he was our best and most 
successful hunter. One day he took the ten-gauge shotgun and 
went out on the flats. My brother heard a single shot, and 
after a while Shawnish came in, calling, “‘ Please, Mr. Young, 
come out with chicchic”’ (wagon). 

“ What do you want with a wagon? ” James asked. 

“Oh, to bring my geese in,” he replied. 

“Geese? ” echoed my brother. ‘‘ You don’t need a wagon 
to bring in your geese. You fired only one shot. How many 
have you? ” 

“Oh, halo kum tux (don’t know). Delate hiyou (very 
many ).” 

My brother reluctantly harnessed up the horses and drove 
out a mile on the flat, and there he found nineteen snow geese, 
big white fellows with a little brown on their heads. The boy 
had wormed his way along the muddy slough until he was 
right amid a flock of many hundreds of the birds. When he 
arose with cocked gun the geese all stretched their necks high, 
preparatory to a hasty flight, and the big charge of BB shot 
from the ten-gauge shotgun raked along the heads, killing a 
wagon-load of the fine birds. That meant a lot of boiled and 
fried goose to fill our forty mouths and also feather beds and 
pillows for sleepy people. 

During the spring and fall there were frequent excursions 
after game in the mountains. There were mountain sheep on 
the near-by hills and even beaver and otter and big bears up 
the Stickeen and Iskut Rivers. But the big expeditions after 
deer in the fall were the great events in the life of our boys. 
I would take two canoes, each manned by three of the stronger 
boys, and at least four or five experienced hunters. We would 
select the most likely islands, not too far away, and send back 


306 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


the game as fast as we obtained it to Fort Wrangell, where 
my brother and the smaller boys prepared the meat for smok- 
ing, drying and salting. Much of it was eaten by our hungry 
children while it was still fresh. On one trip, in two weeks’ 
shooting, we killed sixty-six deer, mostly on Gravina Island, 
opposite to what is now the town of Ketchikan. We saved 
every pound of that meat. I still long for a taste of Alaska 
venison—almost the best meat in the world. Although the 
deer are not so plentiful in Alaska now, still there are thou- 
sands among the islands of Alexander Archipelago. 

On this particular hunt we took with us a tall Nez Perce 
Indian, named Silas, whom we had brought up from Forest 
Grove to teach our boys carpentry. He was used to hunting 
deer on pony-back among the forests and hills of Idaho, but 
to walk through the brush and forests of Alaska dismayed and 
bewildered him. He got lost the first time he went into the 
woods, and had to be hunted up and rescued by the Thlingit 
boys. He killed one deer, a big buck, and after various at- 
tempts to bring in his game he gave up the task, and came 
back to camp. One of our stocky Thlingit lads had to go 
and carry in the deer. 

Our busy days at Fort Wrangell during those years had their 
tragedies as well as\their comedies. In 1886 I made a com- 
bined hunting and missionary trip to, the Tongass, Fox and 
the Kasaan natives among the southern islands of the Archi- 
pelago. I persuaded those tribes to band together and build 
a new Christian town after the Metlakatla style; andithe chiefs 
selected Port Chester on Annette Island, the site of an old 
Tongass town, which had been raided’! and burned by the 
Hydas in former times, as the point where the new Christian 
town should be built. I secured the approval of the Board 
for this project, and instructed Louie Paul, who was then liv- 
ing at Tongass, where Tillie, his wife, was teaching school, to 
go with Mr. Saxman, then employed as a government teacher 


. 
j 
. 





LAST YEARS AT FORT WRANGELL 307 


at Loring on Revillagagedo Island, to go to Port Chester and 
lay off the new town and make their report to me and the 
Board. 

About Christmas time I received a letter from Mr. William 
H. Bond, collector at Port Tongass, containing the sad news 
that Professor Saxman, Louie Paul and an Indian boy on their 
way to Port Chester on this mission had been caught in a 
storm, and all had lost their lives. This dreadful catastrophe 
defeated our project to build a new town at Port Chester; and 
the following summer Father Duncan) visited that point and 
selected it as the site for his new Tsimpshean town. After a 
trip East with a number of his Christian young men and their 
musical instruments and specimens of the handiwork of his 
boys, he secured from the officials at Washington a lease of 
Annette Island for his people. Then, from such churches as 
the First Presbyterian and the Church of the Covenant in 
Washington City, Brown Memorial Church of Baltimore, Dr. 
John Hall’s church in New York, Henry Ward Beecher’s 
church in Brooklyn and Dr. Gordon’s great Baptist church at 
Boston, he secured about a hundred thousand dollars, and in 
the fall of 1887 he moved about' three-fourths of: his people 
from Old Metlakatla and established his famous colony. 

We had our joys and our sorrows, as well as these public 
duties. When'I returned from one of my hunts I found that 
my mother-in-law, Mrs. Abby Lindsley Kellogg, the sister of 
Dr. Lindsley of Portland, had passed away. ' The dear old 
lady had been left a widow by the death, at Whitehall, New 
York, of her husband, Rev. Lewis Kellogg, about 1882, and 
we had brought her to Alaska with us in the! fall of ’83. She 
was one of the sweetest old ladies I had ever' met, but helpless 
in her new environment, and she soon'followed her husband to 
the Better World. 

The birth of our third little daughter in March, 1885, 
brightened our home and gave us another precious one to live 


308 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


and work for. But she did not remain with us long. The 
Occident of San Francisco printed this notice: 


“ DIED—In Oakland, California, June 4, 1887, 
Fannie Louise 
The youngest daughter of Rev. §. Hall Young and 
Fannie E. Young, of Fort Wrangell, Alaska. 


Aged two years, two months and twenty-six days.” 


Mrs. Young had| taken the baby a month before to San 
Francisco for treatment, as the! child’s health was delicate. 
She was a beautiful baby, and everybody loved her. The 
body was brought home to Wrangell, and Dr. Sheldon Jack- 
son, who was coming to Alaska on the same steamer, held 
services at the dock. Our friend, Captain Wilson, conducted 
the funeral at Wrangell. The following summary is taken 
from The Glacier telling why the child was loved so dearly by 
every one: 


Little Fannie was from her first days a remarkably sweet 
and lovable child. Patient, quiet, gentle and good, she drew 
all hearts to her. Her affectionate ways made her the pet of 
all. Even when her slow constitutional disease caused her to 
fade as a leaf, her sweetness of disposition was often remarked. 
She had an angel’s beauty of face and soul, even before she 
was taken to be one of those angels, indeed, who our Saviour 
says “do always behold the face of our Father who is in 
Heaven.” 





XXX 


GOOD-BYE, WRANGELL 


HEN I went to Alaska in 1878, I promised the mis- 

\ \/ sion Board that I would remain in their service for 

ten years. That was twice the length of time they 
required, but I felt then, wisely as it proved, that the longer 
period would be necessary for a full try-out of the plans I had 
made for that work. So, although with increasing impatience, 
I remained my full ten years. The causes of growing dissatis- 
faction were principally three: 

First, I was finding out the serious mistakes we had made— 
not only at Fort Wrangell but also at Sitka and at Indian 
missions in other parts of the United States. The worst of 
these mistakes was that of taking into our training schools 
scholars, especially young men, who were too old. These In- 
dian boys were possessed of a keen desire to get an education 
and to learn civilized ways; they were likeable fellows, and 
most of them were in real earnest; although, occasionally, we 
had to discharge those who we were convinced came to us 
just to find an easy living and to “loaf on the job.” But prin- 
cipally the habits of the old savage life, especially the universal 
vice of unchastity, made them unfit to be in a home of that 
kind, and vitiated our efforts to make clean Christian men of 
our boys. Our cry was that voiced by Jean Mackenzie in 
Africa: “Oh, for one virgin marriage among these people! ” 

While some of these young men and young women who had 
not had an unspotted past were married from the mission 
homes and lived respectable Christian lives thereafter, yet we 
were in constant trouble at both Wrangell and Sitka because 
of the rampant animalism of our young people. Only to those 

309 


310 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


we took in at a tender age could we point in after years with 
pride; and even among these were many sad falls. 

The present plan of government schools and religious or- 
phanages which start the children towards a clean and intel- 
ligent life from their first school years, followed by terms in 
the training schools from the age of eleven on to full man- 
hood and womanhood, is the only safe and sane plan. 

It is so much easier to prevent vice than to uproot it after 
it has grown into a tree. Many, many failures are to be writ- 
ten in the records of our first industrial schools in Alaska. But 
let it not be said that these schools were entiré failures. Great 
good was accomplished at Fort Wrangell by means of our 
Christian mechanics, James Young and George Barnes and, 
later, Mr. Lake, our shoemaker, who was also an accomplished 
band master. The boys were taught useful trades as well as 
the. rudiments of an English language. Our teachers, my 
cousin, Miss Lyda McAvoy; Miss Robinson, who within two 
years married Mr. Barnes; and Miss Chisholm, our house- 
keeper, assisted Mrs. Young in taking care of and training the 
girls as well as the boys. Since Mrs. McFarland had re- 
moved to Sitka with as many of her girls as would go with 
her, the girls in our Thlingit Training Academy at Fort Wran- 
gell were much fewer than the boys. But the labour of caring 
for thirty-five or forty children and youth was too great for 
our small force. The teachers were fagged and worried, and 
our resources inadequate. Even with the help received from 
the government, we always had insufficient funds. 

Second, the aid received from the government for these 
schools, while we worked hard to secure it and rejoiced at our 
success, proved to be a detriment to our work in Alaska as 
well as in other parts of the United States. It took the gov- 
ernment many years to recognize the evil of government aid 
for denominational schools, and to withdraw it. The growing 
demands of the Catholic Church for help from the government 


8 
% 
4 
; 





GOOD-BYE, WRANGELL ~ 311 


for their schools first awakened Protestant churches and mis- 
sion boards to the danger of such aid, and induced both 
Protestants and Catholics to acquiesce in the determination 
on the part of Congress to confine its efforts to giving Indian 
youth a polytechnic education in such schools as Carlisle, 
Hampton and Chemawa. Had we made the Fort Wrangell 
and Sitka schools simply mission enterprises, doing the best 
we could by the means procurable from these sources, I be- 
lieve the failures would have been fewer and the successes more 
numerous. 

While much good was accomplished with government aid, it 
was with joy, at least on my part, that we learned of the de- 
termination at Washington to discontinue all government sup- 
port of denominational schools. 

In 1888 we closed our training school at Fort Wrangell, 
sending some of our teachers, many of our pupils and our 
printing press and outfit of tools and machines, to Sitka, an 
action which centered all educational efforts of our Board 
in Alaska. 

The things accomplished during those ten years were many; 
we look upon them with pride and joy. The “old fashions ” 
had been almost completely eliminated at Fort Wrangell; the 
medicine-men, witchcraft, persecution, potlaches, the old re- 
prisal system, and especially heathenism, had been put down 
so completely that it had been several years since any of the 
Stickeens had dared to “ dream” that anybody was a witch. 
The church membership had grown until it included prac- 
tically all the adults in the place. The old community houses 
were fast disappearing, and neat cottages were replacing them. 
The transformation of the town was slow but quite remark- 
able. Government day schools, with good teachers, mostly 
nominated by our Christian missions, had taken the place of 
the mission day schools. 

The Sitka Training School had been strengthened and was 


a2 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


accomplishing much good and attracting the brightest youth 
of the Archipelago. Industrial schools at Howcan, among the 
Hydas, and at Haines and Juneau were following along the 
same lines. All of the principal tribes had efficient mission- 
aries and teachers; Christianity was triumphant—heathenism 
retreating. The salmon canneries, the gold mines at Juneau, 
the sawmills and other industries employed many natives at 
good wages. Steam launches were replacing canoes; white 
men’s ways of living were superseding the old rude, savage life. 
The Indians were progressing steadily, Alaska was becoming 
popular for its scenic trips and its opportunities for acqujring 
wealth, and especially for the success of its nian 

But the third reason for my determination to leave Alaska 
was the most potent. Always in the back of my mind was 
that advice from McKay when we were nearing the Wrangell 
dock in ’78, ‘‘ Don’t become an Indian.” 

The white population at Fort Wrangell was not increasing; 
a little handful of intelligent people, not more than six or ten, 
attended the white services. At first I preached in the mixed 
Chinook jargon; sermons translated by our “ interrupter ” into 
Thlingit; and then, falteringly, direct discourses in that tongue; 
in fact nine-tenths of my preaching efforts were in native 
tongues. I felt that I was deteriorating mentally and spiri- 
tually; that my habits of study were breaking down. I grew 
to have a horror of such services, instead of delighting in 
them. I wrote to the Board that if I continued to preach in 
Chinook and Thlingit, soon I would not be able to use the 
English language. 

I resigned my position as missionary to Alaska the summer 
of 1888. The Board was very reluctant to let me go, but I 
would not be persuaded, and set my face towards Southern 
California. My family followed in a few months, as soon as 
arrangements could be completed to transfer our plant to Sitka 
and to settle with the government. 


GOOD-BYE, WRANGELL 313 


Our Indians at Wrangell and elsewhere were loud in their 
lamentations at our departure, and I think sincere in their 
expressions of regret and of personal affection. I shall never 
cease to love those natives and to work for their interests. I 
rejoice unceasingly that my steps were led to Alaska direct 
from the seminary and that I was able to accomplish much of 
that to which I set my hands. My mistakes were many, and 
I regret them, both those mentioned and more of which I 
cannot tell. But I was learning much of use to me in my 
future work and acquiring knowledge of my own deficiencies. 

Of my life during the nine years until my return to Alaska 
in 1897 I must speak briefly. First, I sojourned two years in 
Southern California as pastor of two little churches of Long 
Beach and Wilmington. 

The spring of 1890 brought an urgent letter from my sis- 
ter asking me to come back to old Butler, Pennsylvania, and 
see my best of all fathers, who felt that his time on earth was 
approaching its end. I obeyed the summons, and stayed with 
Father until his death, which occurred in October of that year. 
Remaining at Butler until spring, I spent a year supplying 
churches in Chicago and Cabery, Illinois, and then accepted 
a call to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where I remained as pastor for 
three years—1892-95—a fine pastorate among fine people. 
The intellectual companionship of that college town, for it 
is the seat of the State Normal School, brought back the joy 
of study and of sermon composition. One must do his best 
at Cedar Falls, or fall behind in the mental procession. The 
best of companionship, with abundant and successful work, 
made those three years a joy. 

In 1895 I was called back to my Alma Mater, the College 
of Wooster, Ohio, as professor of Biblical history and as pas- 
tor of the college church—Westminster—preaching for two 
years in this splendid missionary and educational center. I 
rubbed up against some of the brightest minds and the most 


314 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


deeply spiritual souls in all the United States. During the 
whole of these nine years I was constantly lecturing on Alaska, 
keeping in touch with the missionaries and people of the Ter- 
ritory, and growing more and more homesick to get back to 
what John Muir called “ my beautiful, fruitful wilderness.” 

In the meantime the Klondike excitement had broken out. 
Marvelous stories of the discovery of gold in that mysterious 
land of enchantment were circulated. The whole world was 
excited; the new strike was exaggerated beyond all bounds. 
Companies were being formed, and great activity was mani- 
fest. I knew something about these gold stampedes from my 
experience with the Cassiar and Juneau gold seekers, and I 
began to write to our mission Board urging that they send 
experienced men to the Klondike to preach the Gospel to that 
horde of gold seekers. 

‘“‘ There will be one of the greatest opportunities of the cen- 
tury,” I wrote, ‘and one of the most crying needs. These 
thousands of men rushing into the wilderness will present 
every phase of human need, physical, mental and moral; and 
the greatest need will be the Gospel of Jesus Christ intelligently 
preached and kindly put in practice.” 

At that time the people of the United States thought that at 
least the greater part of the Klondike was situated in Alaska. 
While it was known that there was strife between Canada and 
the United States over the possession of the Territory, most of 
the people of our country looked upon the Klondike as one of 
our possessions, and it was apparent that the great majority of 
the gold seekers were from the United States. The New York 
Tribune had a cartoon which expressed the sentiment of the 
country: There was a map of the Northland and the Klondike 
region, the greater part of which, according to the chart, lay 
within the borders of Alaska. The British lion was seated 
erect close by the line which divided the two countries; he 
was saying: “ J wonder if I couldn’t inch over a little? ” The 





GOOD-BYE, WRANGELL 315 


truth had not then become known that the Klondike was all 
within the borders of Canada, and that a hundred miles, as 
the River Yukon wound, separated Dawson from Alaska. 

In May, 1897, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church met at Winona, Indiana. I was present at the meet- 
ing, although not as a commissioner. It was a great Assembly 
and noted especially for two things: The great speech of Dr. 
George L. Spining of New Jersey, nominating Sheldon Jack- 
son as Moderator of the Assembly, and the election of that 
gentleman by a decided majority. Dr. Spining’s speech will al- 
ways stand as a masterpiece of eloquence, and it carried the 
Assembly by storm. 

If I have had reason to be glad of any one turn of fortune 
in my long life, it is that I was not offered an appointment 
as governor of Alaska—which President McKinley is known 
to have considered making to me in 1897. I am a firm be- 
liever in the doctrine of predestination, although I cannot sub- 
scribe to most of the hard and unfeeling statements of the doc- 
trine; but that a wise and infinitely kind and good Providence 
manages the destinies of God’s chidlren is one of the creed 
points holding fast to which I have lived and will die. 

It sometimes seems to me that the Infinite takes a divine, 
I would almost say a humorous, pleasure in knocking over 
the fair fabrics of our plans, bringing our castles in Spain 
tumbling about our ears and substituting what we afterwards 
invariably recognize as a better plan. So in this case, I firmly 
believe that my usefulness, and that is to say my happiness, 
in the work that opened up before me in Alaska has been 
incomparably greater than if I had been appointed governor. 

Events marched rapidly in those rushing days of the Great 
Stampede. I was still writing to the secretaries of our Board 
urging them to send missionaries to the Klondike. Their re- 
plies were sympathetic, but intimated that the Board was 
deeply in debt and was prevented by its rule from appropriat- 


316 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


ing money for new work and, therefore, a missionary could 
not be sent to the Klondike unless some one would especially 
give the sum required, as a gift, outside of the Board’s bud- 
get. Dr. McMillan, one of the secretaries, wrote that he was 
trying to secure such a donation; and very soon I received a 
telegram saying, ‘‘ Miss Frances Willard of Auburn, New 
York, says she will put up the money for the Klondike enter- 
prise if Rev. S. Hall Young will be the missionary.” 

I had been acquainted with this maiden lady by letter dur- 
ing my stay at Wrangell, and our mission had been the re- 
cipient of many favours at her hand. We counted her one of 
our most helpful friends. On receipt of Dr. McMillan’s tele- 
gram I called my elders and trustees together, resigned my 
charge, wired acceptance of the appointment, and as the sum- 
mer was waning and no time must be lost, I was ready to start 
northwestward within a week. Directly after sending his first 
telegram to me, Dr. McMillan sent another saying: “ Miss 
Willard wires that she thinks so much of you she will send 
to the Klondike a missionary physician to take care of you. 
Can you nominate such a man? He should be an educated 
physician and also, if possible, licensed to preach, that he may 
help you in your evangelistic work.” 

‘It was hard to find such a combination of qualities in any 
one man, but it happened that Rev. Dr. S. J. Nichols of St. 
Louis, who was a member of the Home Missions Board, was 
in New York that week, and when Dr. McMillan stated the 
case to him he said: “ We have in our Presbytery a young 
man who is a graduate of a medical college and also a graduate 
of one of our theological seminaries. We licensed him this 
spring for one year as evangelist. He applied to the Foreign 
Missions Board to go as medical missionary, but was not ac- 
cepted. Perhaps he would go to the Klondike.” 

Dr. McMillan telegraphed the young man, whose name was 
George McEwan. He accepted, and in a week we met in Chi- 


GOOD-BYE, WRANGELL 317 


cago and started on to the Klondike together. My prepara- 
tions at Wooster were hastily made. Half of my salary was 
left to take care of my family, my daughters being in the 
preparatory department of the college. My family was to 
remain at Wooster while I launched on my second great ad- 
venture. I had a fine “ send-off” from my congregation, and 
it was “ Northwestward Ho” again, with eager desire to see 
my majestic mountains and lovely islands once more. 


XXXI 


THE GREAT STAMPEDE 


OT since the stirring days of 1849-50—the days of 
N the California gold rush—had anything like the 
gold excitement of 1897 struck the country. In- 
deed, the whole world was aroused. The fat gold pokes 
brought out from that mysterious land of the North in the fall 
of 1896, and over the trail during the winter, had stirred the ~ 
imagination of thousands. ‘The frontiersmen of California, 
Colorado and Oregon led the van of the army, which went 
dashing across the Rockies and the plains of the West by the 
transcontinental lines, and by steamer to Panama and then 
up the Pacific Coast, and even by vessels from New York and 
Philadelphia, which took the longer and slower route around 
Cape Horn. 

But most of the stampeders were “ tenderfeet,” of all trades 
and professions, a majority of them men of intelligence and 
imagination, who were lured to the Northwest more by love 
of adventure than by lust for gold. Those from the States 
gathered at San Francisco, Portland and the two young cities 
of Tacoma and Seattle on Puget Sound. The Canadians cen- 
tered at Vancouver. The enterprising merchants and steam- 
boat men of Seattle offered inducements, and got the largest 
crowds. Every train of the newly completed Northern Pacific 
and Great Northern Railways was crowded with passengers, 
and special trains were rushed to the Northwest Coast. 

Dr. McEwan was entirely ignorant of all matters pertaining 
to our journey across the mountains, and I had to transact all 
the business. I left him at Tacoma and took train to Port- 
land. The man from whom we had bought our groceries in 

318 





THE GREAT STAMPEDE 319 


former days was William Wadhams, the “ singing elder,” one 
of the pillars of the church at Portland. I notified him by 
wire of my plans, and he quickly compiled a list for a rush 
order of necessary foods, principally flour, bacon, beans and 
such essentials. I included in my Portland purchases blankets, 
mackinaw suits, and a tent and materials for camping. 

Several routes to the new diggings were exploited by dif- 
ferent companies. A great fleet of little river steamboats had 
been hastily built and were being launched at San Francisco, 
Portland, and Tacoma to sail across the North Pacific Ocean 
through Unimak Pass and Bering Sea to St. Michael—2,300 
miles from Tacoma; thence to stem the rapid current of the 
Yukon River for eighteen hundred miles more to Dawson City. 
Experienced navigators at Portland, and my knowledge of the 
long winter and early freezing of the Yukon, convinced me 
that it was useless to try the longer route, if we aimed to spend 
the next winter in the Klondike. I decided to take the 
“ Queen,” which was to sail in a few days from Tacoma, and 
I directed our goods to be shipped to that point at once. Tak- 
ing stock of the money furnished us, I was convinced that we 
had not enough to take our outfit across the passes. There- 
fore, by the advice and help of friends in Portland, I tele- 
graphed East, and received by special gift five hundred dollars 
more. Rejoining the little doctor at Tacoma, I did as all the 
other Klondikers were doing—purchased a knock-down boat 
there, and shipped it with our goods. I knew nothing of the 
new camp of Skagway, but did know something of the route 
up the Stickeen River, which was being exploited. I thought 
I could get my old friend, John Colbreath, of Telegraph Creek 
on the Stickeen River, to take us and our outfit by pack-train 
to Lake Teslin on what was known as the Hootalinqua Route. 
I bought our tickets to my old town of Wrangell. 

But on rejoining my companion at Tacoma, I found him 
set upon sailing the longer way, via Bering Sea, St. Michael 


320 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


and the Yukon River. Knowing well that we could not make 
Dawson by that route before winter set in, I, of course, in- 
sisted upon the direct route up the Coast. He was very much 
displeased, and almost decided to take his half of the outfit 
and sail to the westward. 

It was the twelfth of August when we left Wooster, and ten 
days later when we boarded the steamer “‘ Queen ” at Tacoma 
bound northwestward. Most of the passengers got on board 
at Seattle; the dock was almost breaking down with eager 
passengers and their friends. The officers of the steamship 
company, reinforced by special police, had all they could do 
to prevent the hundreds who had no tickets, but were deter- 
mined to get on board anyhow, from having their way. As it 
was, the boat was greatly overcrowded. All the berths of the 
cabins, hastily constructed bunks in the steerage and on the 
decks, and improvised sleeping places in the social hall, smok- 
ing room and even on the dining-room tables, were filled by 
the thronging passengers. I discovered that the captain of the 
“Queen ” was our old friend Captain Carroll, the ‘“ King of 
Alaska.”” While we were watching the scramble at Seattle of 
those who were coming aboard, I was astonished and delighted 
to see my dearest friend, John Muir, the great naturalist, with 
two other tree experts coming up the plank. These three men 
had been making a reconnaissance of the trees of Canada and 
were to complete their labours in Alaska. Muir took his place 
by my side, seemingly as joyful at our meeting as I was, and 
vastly amused at the appearance of the crowd of gold seekers 
and their outfits. 

“A horde of fools,” he called them. ‘‘ Babes in the woods 
would not be more bewildered than these chechacos. How 
are they going to get all that stuff over the mountains? And 
look at their shoes—do they expect to climb over the rocks 
shod like that? And that tent, why it will weigh a hundred 
and fifty pounds! See the heavy stoves and bulky cooking 





THE GREAT STAMPEDE 321 


utensils! The sheaves of picks and shovels, and the great 
boxes of tools! I don’t envy you your job of proclaiming the 
Gospel to such a mob. Why, it’s like preaching to a pack of 
wolves! ” 

“T look upon them as my parish; and a most interesting 
parish it is,” I replied. ‘ Immortal souls, all of them. Why, 
every kind of human need and human suffering is typed in that 
crowd.” 

At Port Townsend Muir got a number of telegrams from 
San Francisco. Two of the papers there offered him whatever 
sum he would name if he would join the Klondikers and go 
into Dawson as their reporter. ‘The telegrams were very 
urgent, but Muir handed them to me, laughing: ‘‘ These men 
must think I am a fool, like the rest of this crowd, asking me 
to leave my nature study and join that mob! Here—you take 
these. I'll recommend you as a reporter in my place; you 
will be well taken care of by these people, and all you will 
have to do is to write them a letter now and then.” 

I laughed in my turn. “I imagine my hands will be full 
with my ministerial work,” I said. “ I can’t combine the duty 
of a reporter with that. Joaquin Miller has already started 
into the Klondike as a reporter for this paper; are they not 
satisfied with him? ” 

“You do not know Miller,” Muir replied, “or you would 
not ask that question. He may be a great poet and is, but he 
is utterly unfit for a job like that, and the editors know it. 
Miller’s disability is this—he cannot tell the truth or dis- 
tinguish between truth and falsehood. His imagination is al- 
ways running away with him. The pictures flashed on the 
screen of his fancy are more real to him than every-day facts. 
He will tell tremendous stories and describe imaginary events 
most enchantingly, but the papers and the public want facts 
about the Klondike rush—statistics, data on which to build 
their stories. That Miller cannot and will not give.” 


322 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


The trip up the Coast, in spite of the crowded vessel, was 
all joy to me—the deepest pleasure I had experienced for nine 
years. And to have Muir by my side again to help me see 
and understand the mountains, the islands and the forests! 
His eye was so keen and his memory so unfailing that he was 
always pointing out new landslides, fresh growth, the melting 
of the ice and the decline of the glaciers, and other evidences 
of change since we last had witnessed these scenes. “ The Al- 
mighty is working fast,” he said. ‘‘ He pushes His landscape 
gardening here faster than anywhere else. It will be a new 


Coast in another half-century. The old wilderness will be suc- 


ceeded by a new one; and if selfish men do not come in to 
mar it, the new world will be still more beautiful than the old. 
But I fear money-grabbers will have their way in many places 
and spoil our fine Northwest.” 

At Fort Wrangell I was greeted most warmly by my old 
Indian friends and by a few of the whites I had known. But 
a message from John Colbreath upset my plans. His little 
pack-train was entirely inadequate for the demands made upon 
it, and the Teslin route to the Klondike was impracticable. 
Our goods had to be reshipped to Skagway, and our plans 
readjusted. 

Across the table as we ate our meals sat a striking couple, 
Major and Mrs. J. F. A. Strong of Tacoma. He had been 
editor of a paper at Tacoma, and with his wife was bound to 
the new field. Like myself, he had shipped his goods to Wran- 
gell and had had to reship them there. We formed a friend- 
ship then that has continued unabated to the present time, as 
we have followed each other to Skagway, Dawson, Nome, 
Catalla, Iditarod and later to Juneau, where the Major ruled 
as governor of the Territory for a term. Major and Mrs. 
Strong and we camped together at Skagway, and among my 
pleasant and inspiring friendships I count theirs as in the front 
rank. 





THE GREAT STAMPEDE 323 


That landing at Skagway—who could forget it? A little 
nook in the shore at the end of Lynn Canal, that strange body 
of water which, with its continuation of Chatham Strait, 
pierces the islands straight as an arrow for two hundred miles. 
Many were the questions from the tenderfeet, before we en- 
tered, as to who had constructed the canal, what bodies of 
water it united and when it was completed. These questions 
were all answered gravely by the officers and old-timers, and 
great stories out of their imaginations of immense sums of 
money expended on the Coast engineering schemes were poured 
by jubilant story-tellers into the credulous ears of the new- 
comers. 

Many descriptions have been written of the new camp at 
Skagway and its crowds of bewildered gold seekers. As I have 
attempted to describe these scenes in a former volume, I will 
not repeat any detailed description.’ 

But there was the little windy city, whose name, “ Skag- 
way,” is a corruption of the Thlingit word “ Skoogwa,” which 
was the cognomen of a mythical old woman who lived in a 
valley a few miles back from the beach, and who had in her 
lungs and cheeks the fierce north wind with which she blew 
away the snows as fast as they fell, thus keeping the valley 
free from the drifts and the deep snowfalls found at other 
points on the Coast. The white people supplemented this fancy 
by one of their own, which said: “ All the winds in the world 
blew up Lynn Canal, in the summer, and down, in the win- 
ter.” 

Into this camp were dumped within a few weeks some 
twenty-five thousand people, not one in twenty of whom had 
previously experienced anything like his present condition. 
There were no docks or wharves, no houses or stores—just a 
confused camp in the woods. Our goods were gotten ashore 
on hastily constructed lighters, every man looking after his 


*The Klondike Clan, Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. 


324 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


own goods and piling them on the beach wherever a clear 
space offered. Miles and miles of those goods, thousands of 
tons of them; tents hastily pitched under the trees or on the 
bare sand. Many of these tents and piles of goods were landed 
at low tide on the beach, and stacked on the sands and gravel 
by those ignorant of the tides. The owners would frantically 
snatch up and carry back their goods when the rising tide 
threatened to engulf them. Horses and mules for packing pur- 
poses, hand carts, steam trucks, motor sleds for the trail, bar- 
rows, and hundreds of other appliances utterly impracticable, 
strewed the beach. Men were racing back and forth or hik- 
ing up the trails, crazy with anxiety to get their outfits over the 
mountains. 

I was lucky to find an old Wrangell friend, Mr. Moore, who 
was the builder of the only log cabin erected at Skagway. He 
greeted me heartily, showed me a place which he had kept 
clear in front of his cabin, and invited me to pitch my tent 
there. ‘‘ Help yourself to anything you see in the house,” he 
said, “ but don’t carry any of my cooking utensils away.” He 
even gave me dry wood for my first fire. Major Strong and 
his wife and a few other friends occupied the same lot with 
me. This was the strange beginning of one of the great ex- 
periences of my life. I count this stampede the most interest- 
ing, if not the finest of all my adventures in the Northland. 
It had not the charm of the new discoveries made with Muir, 
but it had more variety and there was more in it to call out 
all that was strongest and best in a man, of service to his 
fellow-men. 

The scenery about Skagway is varied and majestic. - The 
much abused term “ picturesque” can be better applied here 
than to most places on the Coast. The narrow channel of 
Lynn Canal stretches southward between shoulders of granite. 
These rise into jagged peaks, the great rugged Indian profile 
of Face Mountain, the highest peak of all south of the town, 





TIVUL SSVd ALIHM HHL NO DNIHSOAW 














8 


a% 


ra 


a 


t- 





THE GREAT STAMPEDE 325 


with other peaks called Bear Mountain, and Harding Peak. 
To the east the twin peaks, and back of the town the A B 
Mountain, so called because in the spring the snow in the 
gorges outlines the first two letters of the alphabet—giving 
name to the Arctic Brotherhood, organized at Skagway and 
afterwards at all the principal towns of the Northwest. To 
the west, on another prong of the bay three miles away, was 
the camp of Dyea, which was the beginning of the Chilcoot 
Pass. Up the valley from Skagway stretched White Pass, as it 
was called, where the most strenuous struggle to get over the 
mountains took place. 

The mob was in too great a hurry to take time to make the 
trail passable. Narrow gorges with precipitous sides, sharp 
masses of granite rocks sliced off by glacier action and erosion 
from the mountain sides and piled in the gorges; sharp edges 
and points of rock to be scrambled over, with no possible way 
over or around them. And here were thousands’ of horses 
ready to be laden with goods and driven through these gorges 
and over these high mountain shoulders. There was no leader- 
ship, no one to direct the mob. Plenty of packers, but no road 
to pack over. Hundreds of wagons, but no time or place to 
make wagon roads—a dazed and baffled crowd of tenderfeet, 
looking with dismay upon difficulties of which they had never 
dreamed. 

When we arrived at Skagway we expected to go over! the 
mountain by the White Pass. The first day I took a walk of 
some twenty-five or thirty miles, to the summit and back. It 
took the hard scramble of an experienced mountaineer, as I 
was by that time, merely to get myself to that summit and 
return. Every few rods on the lower trail I would pass a pile 
of goods which had been “ packed ” so far by the owner. Most 
of these goods—such as boxes of fresh fruit, canned tomatoes 
and other canned vegetables, canned fruits and cases of con- 
densed milk, sacks of rice and beans—most of these were 


326 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


destined to. remain here, deserted by their owners, or packed 
back to Skagway by those who would take the trouble to 
salvage them. 

But the poor horses! The carcasses of thousands were ly- 
ing in the gorges or fallen among the rocks, with their packs 
still under or on their backs, the victims of the greed: for 
gold. I witnessed one veritable avalanche of horses into Dead 
Horse Gulch, the pity of which will never pass from my mind. 
There was a zigzag of short turns, up which were toiling a pro- 
cession of heavily laden horses. Near the top of the zigzag, 
where the path rounded over a shoulder of rock for a little 
way, toiled a large bay horse. Suddenly he slipped and fell, 
knocking over the horse next to him, and these rolled over and 
over down the hill, coming immediately into contact with one 
after another of the string of horses, these bowling each other . 
over in turn until there were twenty or more horses falling, 
lacerated by the sharp stones, slashed into living steaks by the 
knife-like edges of rock and, landing in the gorge not more 
than ten feet wide, where the stream was roaring, filled: that 
gorge with mutilated and dying horses and their packs. The 
screams of those poor animals still ring in my ears. 

Not only here, but in other places on the trail, like scenes 
had taken place, and I was told by the packers that it would 
take weeks to clear out the jam and make the way passable for 
horses. Most of them announced their determination to give 
up the White Pass, and transfer their goods to Dyea, and try 
the Chilcoot Pass. 

One man told me, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, 
“There goes all the money I was able to raise by mortgag- 
ing my farm in Iowa. I can’t go into the Klondike without 
any grub, and my grub-stake is all gone. I have no money 
to pay my way back home; I used it up on my outfit and in 
buying my horses and getting this far. Now it is gone. I 
shall have to work my way back on the steamboat to Seattle, 





THE GREAT STAMPEDE 327 


and there try to make enough to send me back to my farm.” 
Many others told like tales. 

I had already negotiated with a man at Skagway, who owned 
a lot of horses, to pack my goods to Bennett at the rate of 
thirty cents a pound. He said, “If you will wait a month I 
will keep my contract with you and get your goods over, but 
there is no need of my killing my horses in a useless attempt 
just now.” 

“T shall go to Dyea,” I replied, ‘and try it from that 
point.” So I directed him to take back to Skagway the few 
of my goods he: had packed three miles up the trail, and I 
made all preparations to try it again from Dyea. Three thou- 
sand horses were killed in a few weeks on the White Pass be- 
fore the trail was put in safe condition. 

I had my knock-down boat with me and with the assistance 
of Captain Wilson, who had been the customs collector at 
Wrangell, and who had brought a schooner load of lumber to 
Skagway, I put my boat up, and calked it myself. 

I held an open-air meeting our first Sunday at Skagway in 
front of my tent. I had found a few Christians, and had 
with me a number of Moody and Sankey hymn books, and we 
had congregational singing. But it was preaching to a proces- 
sion of dogs, horses and men, that I did. The mass of stam- 
peders, regardless of their home habits, were too busy to stop 
long enough to hear a sermon; only a few faithful ones sat on 
logs or on their blankets in the open, and joined in the services. 
It was my inauguration into the task of preaching the Gospel 
in the wilderness. I enjoyed it in spite of the confusion, but 
I doubt whether any of the excited men heeded the sermon. 

By this time I had picked up a few friends, who like me 
were to try the Chilcoot Pass, and were busy knocking their 
boats together to ferry their goods to Dyea. When I had 
finished my boat we loaded our goods, in weight about two 
tons. We invited Major Strong and his wife into our boat, and 


328 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


rowed the three miles to Dyea. The Major had found it im- 
' possible to attempt the trail that fall, and had decided to start 
a paper at Skagway. So he and his wife secured a lot and 
were preparing to build a house upon it. When they had 
helped land us and our goods on the beach at Dyea, I presented 
the boat to Mrs. Strong, and they used it occasionally during 
the winter that followed, and especially to ferry their own 
goods to Dyea in the spring when they in turn took the Chil- 
coot Pass for the interior. 

Dyea was a much older settlement than Skagway. In the 
early 80’s a trading post had been established there by J. J. 
Healy, who was a manager for the Alaska Commercial Com- 
pany’s store at Dawson that first year. Mr. Healy had been 
at Fort Wrangell engaged in trading with the Indians, and the 
post at Dyea was designed to supply the Chilcats with the 
goods they used in trading with the interior Indians. These 
Chilcats had made a trail over the Chilcoot Pass, which trail 
the first prospectors who went into the Yukon Valley over the 
mountains had used. When the Klondike stampede began a 
number of the lucky ones brought out their dust over that 
trail and gave the news of the strike to the world. 

I was surprised to find there an old friend, Mr. John Grant. 
I had known him when he was the partner of John Colbreath 
of Telegraph Creek. He was a big, red-faced Englishman. 
He had been elected mayor of Victoria, B. C., after I had 
known him at Wrangell, and was quite a prominent character 
in British Columbia. Here he was running a pack train again, 
and, as he said, “‘ Was making his Klondike right there.” I 
contracted with him for taking our goods to Sheep Creek, and 
he gave me a special rate. To the stores at Dyea we brought 
our goods, to have them weighed preparatory to loading them 
upon our horses. The scales were presided over by another 
old friend, no less than the half-breed Billy Dickinson, my 
first helper and interpreter at Wrangell, who had been one of 





THE GREAT STAMPEDE 329 


my crew on the second voyage with Muir. I have always 
thought that Billy favoured his old pastor in the matter of 
weighing my goods, but if Mr. Grant knew of the short- 
weight he said nothing. 

The trail from Sheep Camp was comparatively easy, al- 
though it was rough enough, but the gorge in its lower part is 
not so rugged, and there was not such an abundance of sharp 
rocks and of steep side hills. Sheep Camp was at the forks of 
the Dyea River and in a somewhat extended flat. There was 
a tent roadhouse, with many bunks in it for the accommodation 
of travelers. I packed my Klondike stove on my back to 
Sheep Creek and made relays of all the goods I could carry, 
during the two days we spent in transporting our goods that 
way. At Sheep Camp we found a number of men, mostly big 
Swedes and Norwegians, who were also finding their Klondike 
on the trail. These men either lacked sufficient funds to take 
them to the Klondike the first year, or found it so lucrative 
to pack other men’s goods that they had given up the trip to 
the Klondike that fall and were engaged in packing. I found 
that these packers were striking every few days for higher 
and higher wages. Some of them were making thirty and forty 
dollars per day, but they saw chances of making forty and 
fifty. 


XXXIT 
THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 


LL who have essayed to write stories on the Stampede 
A of 97-98, including Jack London, Rex Beach, Robert 
Service and, least, myself, have felt obliged to spend 
much time on the White and Chilcoot Passes. The reason for 
this is that right there was the crux of the whole stampede. In 
1849-50 the romance and adventure of the California gold 
rush centered upon the weary trekking, the alkaline plains, the 
thirst, the weariness and more especially the fights with the 
Indians. The thousands who persisted, and struggled and 
fought their way through to the first American Eldorado, were 
as nothing to the tens of thousands who turned back in Mis- 
souri, Nebraska and Colorado, or perished on the Western 
stretches. To the same degree the Chilcoot Pass was the sieve 
through which the fine flour was sifted, the gold rocker which 
was to separate the nuggets from the worthless gravel. 

The thousands of stampeders whose money was gone when 
they reached Tacoma and Seattle and turned back eastward; 
the other thousands who got themselves and their outfits to 
Skagway and Dyea and there looked at the trail and the 
mountains, and quit—these were almost exceeded by the other 
thousands who tried these fearful passes and were defeated by 
their difficulties. It was all in the spirit of a man—not in his 
physical make-up. Slim young boys who had stampeded from 
college, clerks from city offices, soft-handed lawyers, doctors 
and other professional men, these were more apt to be found 
at Dawson that fall than the horny-handed farmers and me- 
chanics who had started out on the same quest. The men of 
imagination were the winners. The men who fell down, got up 

330 





THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 331 


again, joked about their predicament and tried it once more, 
were the men who succeeded. The grumbler, the man who 
knew it all, and the egoist, these failed; the optimist won. 

The contrasts between the personal character and the atti- 
tude towards life of the travelers on the trail, and of the same 
men after they had won through to the Klondike, were striking. 
Selfishness, disregard for the rights of others, greed, anger over 
trifles, the falling out of lifelong friends—these were common 
scenes on the trail. A great charity, the disposition to help 
those who were in trouble, indomitable cheerfulness, these 
characterized the man who “ stuck it out ” and went through. 

It is hard to go on with my personal story without giving an 
impression of boasting. I can see many mistakes made by my- 
self during that stampede. If I had it to do over again, I 
would do it better; but this resolution stayed with me all the 
long way to Dawson and afterwards—if I felt discouragement, 
not to show it to others; if I saw a man in distress, to try to 
help him; always to keep in mind my mission, which was to 
help alleviate every case of spiritual, mental or bodily distress. 
To lighten men’s burdens—that was my call, and I tried to 
heed it. I kept an open hand to feed those who went hungry 
because they had not possessed the foresight to provide prop- 
erly. The frequent cases of illness we found on the trail, 
such as typhoid fever, pneumonia, lumbago, meningitis, had to 
be cared for, or at least an effort made to alleviate the pain 
by means of the medicines we had along with us, by personal 
attention and by obtaining the help of the mounted police when 
we reached Canadian territory. In many cases these acts of 
kindness proved to be bread cast on the waters, and found 
“after many days.” 

One case was that of Mr. LaRoche, an accomplished photog- 
rapher who was taking pictures of the trails and the stam- 
peders. He found me at Skagway and partook of my hospital- 
ity there in my camp. He came to me again and again as I 


332 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


was packing my Klondike stove on my back, making camp 
ahead of my packers and cooking for them. LaRoche liked 
my biscuits and my way of cooking beans and bacon. And 
the enormous amount of these articles which he could stow 
away in his gaunt form would have astonished one, anywhere 
else! He would extend his journey ten miles farther than 
planned in order to get to my camp and eat of my cooking. 

All through my life since, the splendid pictures which La- 
Roche made and gave to me, hundreds of which I have had 
made into striking lantern slides, have helped me in my lectures 
and have been a boon to the Church. Those meals given to a 
hungry man have brought a thousand-fold return. The giving 
of a piece of string at Crater Lake to Phil Sheridan, the nephew 
of the famous general, resulted in a fine friendship—and in 
several good meals when I was most in need of them. Help af- 
forded to a young fellow whose cayuse had shaken off the awk- 
ward pack until it hung under its belly, the young fellow being 
wedged with his horse in a small nook beside the trail and un- 
able to help himself, resulted in the first religious impressions 
the young man had experienced, and in his ultimate conversion 
to an earnest Christian life. 

The spiritual problems of the trail far exceeded in impor- 
tance the physical obstacles, such as slippery rocks, precipitous 
slopes, steep ascents and muddy swamps. The strain of mind 
was far more severe than that of muscle. 

It took us nearly two weeks to traverse the thirty miles from 
Dyea to Bennett. It cost me fifty cents a pound to get our 
outfit that distance. At Sheep Camp and after we had topped 
the summit, I became convinced that we could not afford to 
take our whole outfit all the way to Bennett. Our money was 
getting low, and the winter of the interior was fiercely rushing 
on its way to meet us and lock the gate to the gold fields by 
freezing the upper stretches of the Yukon. We must either 
leave half our goods on the trail, a total loss, or run the risk 





THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 339 


of spending the winter far from our goal or of fleeing back 
home defeated. I made the resolution to go in “short of 
grub,” and take my chances. 

I kept my packers contented by feeding them well, while 
other packers were striking day after day for higher and higher 
wages, getting their employers in tight places and then squeez- 
ing them. Mine stayed by me loyally, and landed what goods 
I chose to keep, in good condition on the shores of Lake Linde- 
man. At Crater Lake, that granite cup of cold water on the 
summit of Chilcoot Pass, I lost my most valuable package, my 
box of little scarlet paper-covered hymn books. Knowing the 
rain and snow we would encounter, I had this package done up 
neatly in black oilcloth. It looked and “ hefted ” like valu- 
able hardware. Somebody coveted it, and packed it off in the 
night. I imagine the rocks were pretty blue from the profanity 
of the thief when he discovered he had stolen nothing more val- 
uable to him than hymn books—but he did not bring them 
back. I heard the following summer from one of the Ninety- 
Eighter’s of the discovery of little books, reduced almost to 
pulp from exposure to rain and wind, among the rocks of the 
summit. 

When we reached Lake Lindeman, the small, narrow bow] of 
clear water which lies above the larger Lake Bennett, we paid a 
man who had just finished building a boat, to row our goods 
to the little neck of land which separates the two lakes. I 
passed my fiftieth birthday at Lake Bennett. It was cele- 
brated in primitive style by a little party given me by Mrs. 
Harry Scovel. Harry, a reporter for the New York World, 
was the son of President S. F. Scovel of Wooster College. 
His wife had been a belle of society in St. Louis. Here she 
was, freckled like a boy and dressed like one, holding jolly 
court for the gold seekers whom she had met by the way. 
Harry did not go farther than Lake Bennett, having been 
recalled by his paper that he might be sent to Cuba to report 


334 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


the war of that island with Spain. Mrs. Scovel was learning 
how to cook and bake on her Klondike stove, and she made a 
wonderful “ birthday pie ” for me. Of course, we all praised it. 

Our outfit had been reduced to less than a ton in weight, and 
the problem was to get it and ourselves down the river to 
Dawson. The snow was beginning to fall at Bennett, the city 
of tents encircling the head of the little blue lake. The prob- 
lem of the five or six thousand men who had reached Bennett 
was to get lumber, build boats and launch them before the 
freezing of the lakes. Everything at Bennett had been packed 
on the backs of men, with the exception of a few heavier 
articles which had gone earlier in the season on horses and 
mules over the White Pass. There was no machinery brought 
to the lake. The only way to get the lumber was by what was 
called the ‘Armstrong Sawmill.” The lumber was whip- 
sawed by hand. My shoulders ache yet when I think of the 
hours I spent up on top of a log, which reposed on a frame 
seven or eight feet high, pulling the whip-saw up while a 
stronger man below pulled it down through the log. 

I was helping a couple of men whose acquaintance I had 
made on the trail to make lumber for a boat big enough to hold 
their outfit and ours. Soon it began to dawn upon us that we 
were not going to succeed in our attempt; the lumber was 
made so slowly and the winter was coming so rapidly that we 
feared failure. Still we kept at work, until my plans were sud- 
denly changed by the little doctor. An old Klondiker by the 
name of Sullivan (‘“‘ Black Sullivan,” he was called because of 
his complexion, and afterwards “ Whiskey Sullivan ” from his 
occupation) had constructed a scow, and was advertising for 
passengers. Without my knowledge he approached Dr. Mc- 
Ewan and persuaded him to hand over a hundred dollars to 
secure our passage on his scow. I tried to get the money back 
from Sullivan, but he only laughed at me. There was nothing 
to do but to bid good-bye to my friends of the ‘“ Armstrong 





THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 335 


Sawmill ” and allow them to put up a smaller boat, sufficient 
to hold their own outfit, while I got our goods on board Sul- 
livan’s scow and took that means of reaching our destination. 

There were ten of us who were passengers, with our outfits, 
on the scow. Sullivan had another scow which he was launch- 
ing and which was loaded with whiskey, brandy and beer for 
the thirsty Dawsonites. I did not know of this other scow 
until we were on our way. Sullivan was captain of the whis- 
key scow, and named a Scotchman as our captain. His name 
was Archie ((I do not know his surname), but he had never 
boated on a river, and knew nothing about such navigation. 
The troubles we experienced on this voyage of nearly three 
weeks were many. We had rigged a great square sail on the 
scow, and it was provided with long sweeps, with a very large 
one for a rudder, requiring two men to handle it. 

I cannot dwell upon that voyage down the Yukon. ‘The 
plan was for the two scows to keep near each other, and when- 
ever practicable to camp together. This arrangement gave our 
captain, Archie, the opportunity that he desired more than 
anything else in life—to get very drunk each night on Sul- 
livan’s liquor. The passengers were a rather good lot. There 
was one woman on board, a Mrs. McDonald, the wife of a 
Scotchman whose brother had a claim on Eldorado Creek. 
Her husband and a third brother were going in to work for 
the lucky one, and to find claims for themselves. There was 
Pete, a hearty, tobacco-chewing, rough but big-hearted working 
man. His partner, “Shorty,” was also genial and good- 
hearted, but the master of a most remarkable and varied pro- 
fane vocabulary. 

A Polish Jew named Simon was of the party. He was very 
lazy but most devout, and it was a curious circumstance that 
whenever there was a specially hard bit of navigation before 
us which required the services of every man from daylight till 
dark, Simon’s holiday interfered, forbidding him to do any 


336 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


work. We bore with his religious scruples for a while, but 
after he had received a good drubbing from one of the other 
passengers he concluded that he was exonerated from blame 
for working on account of ‘“‘ compulsion,” and did his stunt 
thereafter, though unwillingly. Of the other men who made up 
the party on our scow, two were Protestant Christian men, the 
McDonalds being devout Catholics. We had no trouble with 
one another, except with our captain. After a day or two of 
his inefficiency, enhanced by his intoxication, we mutinied, and 
elected one of the McDonalds as our captain. 

Launching our craft in a fair wind, we bowled along at a _ 
good rate through the long lake to a shallow, marshy stream 
called Caribou Crossing, then through the larger Lake Tagish, 
and into a stream called Tagish River. Here we had to halt 
and be inspected by the mounted police. This was my first 
acquaintance with that famous body of wilderness police whose 
heroism and romantic adventures have been exploited for half 
a century in romance and story, and of late in a multitude of 
moving-picture films. While sharing the universal admiration 
for this splendid body of men, I began to be disillusioned here 
at Tagish. We were all supposed to pay a tax in compensa- 
tion for the “‘ protection ” we were to receive, on our journey, 
from the mounted police. The officers at Tagish had every- 
thing in their own hands. They assessed us according to their 
own judgment and the estimate that they were able to put upon 
the size of the traveler’s purse. Some they unmercifully 
“cinched,” while others they let through free or upon small 
payments of money, supplemented by liquor. I happened to’ 
have a letter of introduction to the chief officer, given me by 
a member of their force at Skagway, and this letter secured 
me favour, and I had to pay only ten dollars to get my goods 
entered into Canadian territory. 

While at Tagish my attention was drawn to a small moun- 
tain of mail sacks, which had been received from the Coast and 


THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 3S 


piled up under a tent waiting for the proper officers to forward 
them down the river. None of this mail, received up to that 
time and afterwards, reached us at Dawson until the following 
March! This was one of the most cruel features of our lives 
in the Klondike that winter—the absence of our mail. 

Poling through the reeds of the sluggish and shallow Lake 
Marsh, we came to the upper stretches of the Lewes River. 
Soon we were rushing down the steep decline of a ten-mile 
current. A great camp of tents with a few log houses wel- 
comed us near the head of Miles Canyon. ‘This was the be- 
ginning of the dangerous rapids five miles long, the lower and 
most perilous stretch of which was called White Horse Rapids. 
We camped two days above Miles Canyon, getting ready to 
shoot the rapids. This terrible rapid named itself. The first 
white men to descend this stream saw from above what ap- 
peared to be galloping white horses with tossing manes and 
tails. 

Black Sullivan was used to the rapids, and took both his 
scows through by the aid of his strongest and most intel- 
ligent men. He first lightened both scows, sending a couple 
of tons of his goods and those belonging to the passengers on 
man-back the five miles by land to the camp below the White 
Horse. A number of men who were used to the rapids were 
making large sums of money by acting as pilots to steer the 
boats of the tenderfeet down the dangerous passages. I did 
some packing with the rest, but when our scow descended I 
was in it, studying the channels for future voyages. As we 
shot through the columned walls of the beautiful canyon, 
veered through Squaw Rapids where the river widened into a 
score of channels among the scattered boulders, then hung for 
a moment in an eddy above the dreaded White Horse before 
dashing through the middle of the foam, we saw a dozen 
wrecks impaled on the sharp rocks and wedged between the 
boulders. We learned that some two hundred men had lost 


338 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


their lives within a week or two, trying to shoot the rapids 
themselves rather than employ the high-priced pilots. In fact, 
all along the fearful way from Skagway to Dawson, death 
assessed a heavy toll of life. The crazy gold seekers, mad 
with the gold-lust, took desperate chances. 

I learned to love those rapids. The breathless rush adown 

them, grazing by a few inches the rocky points whose touch 

meant death, was most exhilarating. One felt the joy of 
battle. We shouted aloud with glee when we shot the last 
stretch and the white spume dashed over us as the raging 
steeds tossed their snowy tails in our faces. There were many 
newly made graves, both above and below the rapids, mute 
witnesses of the rashness of the chechacos and the peril of the 
rapids. 

Then the reloading, and the swift but safe waters of the 
river down to Lake Lebarge. This long and beautiful stretch 
of clear water was compassed in a few hours by means of our 
big sail and a strong wind blowing down the lake. A grateful 
change of food from our invariable pork and beans was af- 
forded by the big lake trout for which we trolled as we sailed 
over the lake. After this came the rapid and dangerous 
“Thirty Mile River,” where our ignorance of channels came 
near wrecking us several times. ‘Then on down, past the 
Hootalinqua, to the end of the Dalton Trail, where we stopped 
to take aboard five or six passengers who had traversed that 
trail with pack animals. Here they slaughtered their horses 
and piled the carcasses aboard our scows, to afford their mas- 
ters fresh meat during the long winter. A larger and better 
supply of meat was taken aboard our scow when we had shot 
the picturesque and exciting Five Finger Rapids and landed in 
an eddy at its foot. There we found a herd of beef cattle, 
which had been driven across the Dalton Trail and down the 
valley. The cattle men came aboard with the quarters of beef, 
and we swept on again. 


THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 339 


It began to snow before we got the beef aboard, and the 
weather grew stormy and severe. Out of the Pelly River, as 
we passed its mouth below Fort Selkirk, came rushing and 
grinding a vast flow of icebergs, growing always larger and 
more threatening. For two hundred and fifty miles we floated 
in this jam of ice. Often it would crowd the channel so 
closely as to dam the river; the big, flat cakes would leap up 
clear into the scow. Scores of smaller boats were smashed 
like egg-shells by these charging floes. Again and again the 
ice jam forced us on sandbars, where we would hang up, bat- 
tered by great icebergs charging down upon us. Then we 
would be forced to turn out all hands, and take those heavy 
quarters of beef on our backs, packing them long distances 
through the water and slush to where we could place them 
securely on the shore, until the boat was lightened sufficiently 
to float it off the bar and permit reloading again. 

Day after day this heavy work had to be repeated. Some- 
times landing was impossible until hours after nightfall, and 
in the thick darkness, increased by heavy snowstorms, we 
would get ourselves and our tents ashore, camping in a foot of 
snow on the frozen ground. Wearily we would pack our grub 
kits to the camp, stretch our tents between the alders and wil- 
lows, cook our pots of beans and black coffee, and at midnight 
turn into our cold bunks. Yet that long voyage down the 
Yukon had its cheerful phases, when, floating in safe channels, 
we would sing, spin yarns and forget our trials. 

Twice during the voyage we camped for several hours on 
Sunday, and I gathered my fellow-voyagers from our scows 
and from other boats to cheerful services. Wonderful displays 
of the aurora borealis, beautiful and imposing mountain scen- 
ery, adventures with a bear and a moose, both of which we 
tried, but failed, to get, made our great adventure more joyous, 
and we learned to make light of it. 

It took two months of very hard work, to travel from 


340 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Wooster, Ohio, to Dawson, where we landed on the ninth day 
of October in a jam of ice, with a foot of snow on the ground 
and in zero weather, and with the temperature sinking lower 
by perceptible degrees every day. We lined-in our scow to 
the camp just above the mouth of the Klondike River. This 
was a wild landing place under a high bluff. Every rod of 
space was occupied by tents. The camp had grown suddenly 
to the dimensions of an army encampment. Healy, the old 
timer, doubtless from memory of unpleasant experiences there, 
had called it ‘‘ Louse Town.” Later the more permanent resi- 
dents of Dawson had substituted for the disgrace of such a 
name that of “ Klondike City.” 

We landed in this camp early in the week. First of all we 
had to climb the bluff and skid down dry fir stumps and 
branches for firewood. Then, leaving the doctor to watch 
camp, I set out on my three-mile tramp to the town of Dawson. 
The ferrymen were always in evidence to set men across the 
Klondike, only a few rods’ distance, taking five minutes in the 
passage and charging a dollar for each passenger. Then the 
trail through the frozen swamp among straggly willows and 
alders, down to the big booming new camp. I was surprised 
and rejoiced to be met half-way and hailed by one of my old 
Thlingit pupils, whom we had taken into our training school 
at Wrangell—Tacoo Jimmy. He came running out to greet 
me, chattering joyfully in a mixture of Chinook and broken 
English, haled me by main strength into his tent on the trail, 
and satisfied my hunger with a most delicious meal of fresh 
biscuits and caribou meat, the latter the fruit of his own rifle. 
Then down to my new parish of the Klondike! 


a i oe 


XXXITI 


RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 


timers who had struck it rich and were already piling 

up their dumps on Eldorado, Bonanza and Hunker 
Creeks called the newcomers. The bewilderment of a black- 
smith set to make a watch, a coal-heaver to conduct a law 
case, or a farmer to preach a sermon, typed that of all these 
lawyers, doctors, farmers and merchants dumped down in the 
wilderness and set to find and produce gold. They did not 
know the first thing about the business. All, to begin with, 
were over-Ssanguine. Great expectations had buoyed them up 
in the strenuous march with their picks over the passes and the 
weary wielding of unaccustomed oars down the Yukon. Then 
to land at Dawson, and hear that all the claims on which gold 
had been found were staked—this discouraged some to the 
point of suicide. Here again it was the spirit of the individual 
that counted. Some were still ultra-optimistic. A fine, big 
farmer from Iowa—I shall never forget him; the backward 
toss of his head and the squaring of his shoulders when some 
one announced the fact that no new strikes had been made for 
the past two months. He laughed heartily, and said, ‘‘ That’s 
good news; there will be all the more for ws to find.” 

The fact that the terrible “ grub scare” hung like a black 
cloud over the camp, was the most serious circumstance. 
Nearly all had come in short of provisions. Like myself, they 
had taken a chance. It became apparent that the supply of 
foodstuffs in the stores and in the outfits of the miners was not 
nearly sufficient to last until the steamboats could get up the 
Yukon next summer. The two big stores, the A C (Alaska 

341 


S EVEN thousand crazy people! That is what the few old- 


342 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Commercial Company) and the N A T & T (North American 
Trading and Transportation Company) had only a few articles 
remaining on their shelves; all the flour, beans and bacon had 
been sold. A limited quantity of sugar, canned milk, rice and 
cereals for breakfast were found in the stores at high prices 
when we landed, but these staples were soon exhausted. 

Prices soared to the skies. From the first the standard price 
for all kinds of food was a dollar a pound; butter was five dol- 
lars a pound, and ten-cent cans of milk were two dollars and 
a half each. Even there in the midst of the panic the specu- 
lators were at work bulling the market, and a fifty-pound 
sack of flour sometimes sold for as much as a hundred and 
twenty-five to one hundred and fifty dollars. The expected 
supply of game had not materialized—panic had seized the 
camp. For the last three hundred miles of the river we had 
been meeting men in long poling boats frantically labouring 
against the ice and the strong current of the river, headed up 
the Yukon for the “ outside.” These all yelled to us as they 
met us: “ Turn back! you will starve! There is no grub at 
Dawson. Turn back, you fools, turn back! ” 

When we asked about the supply of gold they would answer, 
‘Damn the gold—what good is it? You can’t eat it.” 

But the great majority of those who had come to Dawson 
were resourceful. They kept their cheerfulness and courage in 
spite of obstacles. They held on desperately to their outfits, 
and woe to the man who showed thievish propensities or in- 
clination to “ corner ” foodstuffs! 

Most of the chechacos spent the forepart of the winter 
frantically stampeding to this and that wildcat creek. This 
habit became an epidemic. Groups of men in all the saloons 
and stores eagerly discussed the latest rumours. Men were 
credulous and gullible. Affairs got to be so bad that if a man 
was seen talking eagerly to another, and the two presently 
moved off together—that was enough to start a stampede. 





RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 343 


My own situation was a typical one. I had paid out my 
money freely to the packers and for the necessary expenses of 
the trip, relying on our partnership money for which I thought 
Dr. McEwan was caring, to purchase a cabin when we should 
reach Dawson and to tide us over until money should begin to 
come in from collections. We landed at Dawson with barely 
four months’ provisions, and eight months would elapse before 
the steamboats would bring fresh supplies. But to my amaze- 
ment, on our first night in camp at Louse Town I learned 
from the little doctor that $400 of our funds had disappeared, 
in some way which he did not explain. He had only sixty- 
five dollars, and I only sixty. 

What to do, I knew not. I had bargained with Black Sul- 
livan for a quarter of beef, weighing a hundred and fifty 
pounds, and Sullivan had agreed to wait for payment until 
the next spring. I was to pay a dollar and a half per pound 
for it. There was only that between us and starvation. 

There was no time to waste in lamenting or brooding over 
our loss. The burden was on my shoulders, and I must carry 
it. 

The second day, leaving the doctor again with our stuff 
at Louse Town, I went to Dawson. My first inquiries were 
concerning a place to live in. The thermometer registered ten 
degrees below zero, and soon it would be sixty below, and men 
cannot live in tents during the winter in that climate. I went 
to the saloon of my old Cassiar friend, Bill McFee. It was 
the largest saloon in the place. McFee was a big-hearted, 
good-natured fellow, who had been a successful miner and who 
was somewhat ashamed of his present occupation. He apolo- 
gized to me when I met him. “ This seemed to be the only 
business in sight, parson,” he said, “and there is sure big 
money in it here.” 

“ Bill,” I said, “I want you to help me get started.” 

“ Sure, what can I do for you? ” he replied. 


344 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


‘Well, I am short of grub, and almost out of money. I 
must find a house to live in and a place to preach in.” 

“Qh,” he replied, “there are some cabins for sale here. 
Some of the old-timers anticipated just this sort of thing, and 
put up cabins. Hey, Alec! ” he motioned to a tall, lanky, fair- 
haired young Scotchman. “ This is Alec Gillis—he has some 
cabins.” 

Soon Alec and I were tramping down the street and across 
the flats. Everywhere there was feverish activity; men were 
chopping trees, hauling logs, pitching tents, gathering wood; 
the great camp was whipping itself into shape rapidly. Alec 
stopped before a neat looking 10 x 12 log cabin. It had one 
window with single sash. He opened the door and revealed a 
neat interior, with rough plank floor and no furniture what- 
ever. 

“How much do you want for that cabin? ” I asked. 

“The price is eight hundred dollars cash.” 

I threw up my hands, and exclaimed: “ It can’t be done.” 

“Well,” said Alec, ‘‘ I think you can manage it. I will leave 
this offer open all week, but I can’t come down on it.” 

I knew it had perhaps taken two men a couple of weeks to 
build that cabin, and now to ask eight hundred dollars for 
it!) I was amazed. I went back to McFee’s saloon and told 
Bill, who was talking at the time with a genial young reporter 
whom I had met at Skagway, and who greeted me with a 
smile. His name was Wells, and he was working for the 
Scripps-McRae League of newspapers, of which the Cincinnati 
Inquirer was the most prominent. He had been in the camp 
some weeks and was becoming acquainted with many of its 
lucky miners. 

“‘ Say,” he said, “a man was asking about you this morning. 
He says he knew you in West Virginia.’ Presently there stood 
by his side a slim man, long-necked and very brown, with a 
thick mustache, “ This is Mr. Liggett,” said Wells. 


RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 345 


The miner reached out a hearty hand. ‘“ Aren’t you Hall 
Young? ” 

“ That is my name,” I acknowledged. 

“Well, I am Bill Liggett who used to live at Canaan in 
Upshur County, West Virginia. I went to school to your 
brother, and worked on your father’s farm at French Creek.” 

Fresh hand-shaking followed, and a rapid fire of questions. 

“ Liggett has struck it rich on Thirteen Eldorado,” said 
Wells. “ Mr. Young is up against it, Bill; perhaps you can 
help him out.” 

“Sure, I can,” said Liggett after he had heard my story. 
“T have a lot of dust that I can’t use until spring, and I am 
willing to let you have what you want without interest until 
you can pay me back next summer.” Turning to McFee, he 
said: “ Let the parson have eight hundred dollars of my dust.” 

The note was drawn, and I walked off with my poke of gold, 
hunted up Gillis, and the transfer was made. Then back to 
McFee’s. ‘‘I must preach next Sunday, and there are only 
four days left for preparation. Can I preach in your saloon? ” 

Bill laughed. ‘“‘ You sure are green in this camp, or you 
wouldn’t ask such a question. Just look around, and see if 
you think I could clear out this hall long enough for you to 
hold a meeting.” 

A mass of men crowded the large room, jostling and elbow- 
ing one another. Here and there they were standing in groups, 
and a line of men stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the 
long bar, while the man behind it was busy serving his thirsty 
customers. The center and back of the hall was full of tables 
fitted with all kinds of gambling devices—roulette, faro, poker 
and all the rest, even craps. A babel of loud laughter, songs, 
but mostly the conversation of men in anxious consultation. 
This was the place to get the news. Every kind of business, 
even a rude sort of banking was transacted. 

“ At night,” said Bill, “this floor is packed from wall to 


346 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


wall, like sardines in a can, full of sleeping men, chechacos in 
their blankets lying here to get some sleep. ‘This is a house- 
less, homeless crowd. We couldn’t begin to clear them out, 
day or night.” 

‘ All right,” I replied, ‘‘ I will try elsewhere.” I went to one 
after another of the saloons, dance halls and stores, but the 
same scene confronted me everywhere. The lodging houses 
were simply log buildings packed full of bunks, with no space 
between them. Back again to McFee’s saloon. ‘‘ My hands 
are up,” I said to him, “ unless I can get some empty build- 
ing and fit it up myself.” 

“J have an idea,” Bill replied, and stepped with me out- 
side the door. ‘ You see that partly finished house up there? 
It belongs to a Frenchman, Napoleon Dupres. Let’s go and 
see him.” 

We found a little fat Frenchman, working and gesticulating 
to a couple of men in the building. It was a two-story log 
house, the lower space being all one room, measuring 25 x 30 
feet. There were two doors, front and back, and three win- 
dows, only two of which had glass in them. The upstairs was 
divided into six little rooms, three on each side, with a five- 
foot hall between them. The rooms were ten feet square. 

“Will you rent your house to me? ” I asked. 

“Oh, oui,” answered the Frenchman. 

“IT would like to rent it,” I said, ‘‘ for seven months, or 
until spring opens.” 

“Vell,” he answered, “I geef you heem for eight hundred 
feefty dollars cash now.” 

“Man! ” T exclaimed. “I am not trying to buy your house; 
I just want to rent it.” 

“No,” he replied, “I no sell heem. By’m bye I make 
plentee money here. I must go outside for vinter.”’ 

“Will you finish it, and make it warm and comfortable so 
that I can live in it? ” I asked. 





RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 347 


“ Hoo, non,” he repeated, “ I no monee; you feenish heem 
yourself.” 

Bill Liggett had followed me, and now took a hand in the 
bargain: “See here, Nap, this is a friend of mine, and I am 
back of him, see? You will have to come down in your price.” 

“‘ Non, non,” protested the Frenchman. “ Plentee man vant 
heem; plentee man vant heem.” 

“ How long will you give this man to raise the money? ” 
Liggett asked. 

“T vant heem now,” insisted the Frenchman. 

“You will give him until Monday,” said Liggett, ‘“ that’s 
settled.” Then he turned to me with another suggestion. 
“Come upstairs with me; I have an idea.” We went up and 
looked at the six rooms. Each one had a small window hole 
but no sash. The partitions were nothing but thin boards 
rudely papered. ‘“‘ Now,” said my friend, ‘“‘ there are hundreds 
of men in this camp who are eagerly looking for a place to 
store their goods and to sleep in. You will have no difficulty 
in renting these rooms at twenty dollars a month each, and 
that will pay your rent of the building. Come and see if we 
can’t sublet the rooms. Then I will take you where I think 
you can borrow the money without interest.” 

So, leaving the Frenchman, we went back to McFee’s saloon, 
and met men whom I had known on the trail, and some of 
those who had come down the river in our scow. We soon 
had twelve lodgers for the six rooms, who agreed to move in 
with their outfits as soon as I could provide windows and 
bunks. I prevailed upon Dupres to get these, although he 
grumbled at the price he had to pay—an ounce of gold, sixteen 
dollars, for one sash. 

“Now,” suggested Liggett, “come, and we will get the 
money.” The gold commissioner, Mr. Fawcett, was the only 
officer of the Canadian government who had come into the 
camp and was doing business. The commissioner, or governor 


348 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


of the Territory, Major Walsh, had not arrived, nor the court 
officers. Mr. Fawcett was a lean, whiskered man, with kindly 
eyes. He greeted me warmly when I was introduced to him. 
“T am surely glad you have come,” he said. “I am a Chris- 
tian man, a member of the Wesleyan Church of Canada. 
What can I do for you? ” 

I told him my story, and that I was out of money, and asked 
him if he could introduce me to some one who would let me 
have what I needed until spring. His eyes twinkled. 

“Wouldn’t you rather I’d give you the money in hand? ” 
he asked. 

“Why, yes, if you can do so,” I replied. 

He explained that they would get thousands of dollars into 
their office each week, and it was not possible to send any of 
the gold dust out to Ottawa before next summer; that he could 
let me have the money, and more if I needed it, with Liggett 
and McFee as securities to satisfy the government—no interest 
charged. 

Joyfully I went back to my headquarters in the saloon. 
The papers were fixed up, the big load off my mind. 

Three days more to get ready for the meeting. More friends 
gathered around full of interest. Other reporters took up the 
case, some volunteered to attend to the advertising, compan- 
ions on the trail offered their hands to assist. A broken-down 
stove was found in the back yard of Bill’s saloon and was 
given to me outright, and a little tinsmith agreed to fix it so 
that I could kindle fires in it, and to furnish second-hand stove- 
pipe at a dollar and a half per joint for the big stove, and 
smaller pipes for the Klondike stoves of the miners which 
would be placed in the lodging rooms. Then a little force of 
us attacked the pile of moss and chips on the main floor, 
chinked the gaps in the walls, and boarded up the open win- 
dow. In two days we had the hall ready for the meeting. 
Sixty blocks of wood, sawed in stove length, were borrowed 


RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 349 


for seats. A larger log, five feet long, was stood on end for 
a pulpit. 

“Come to the meeting! ” screamed all sorts of posters 
placed on stumps or the sides of buildings in the town and up 
the trail. “‘ Bring your hymn books and Bibles with you. 
Everybody welcome! ” 

Saturday found us comfortably settled in our new cabin and 
the church fitted, ready for the meeting on the morrow. The 
lodging rooms must wait until the next week. Our little cabin 
was at the foot of the hill and about half a mile from our new 
meeting house. 

Breaking off occasionally from my work to answer calls, I 
would visit the sick in the newly erected Catholic Hospital 
built under the direction of the “Saint of the Northwest,” 
Father Judge. He had been a Jesuit missionary to the Indians 
on the Yukon River, and had been sent by his superiors to the 
new camp at Dawson. He arrived there early in the spring of 
1897, and went vigorously to work to alleviate the sufferings 
of the camp. The typhoid epidemic, which always attacks 
such new camps, had broken out, and many were sickening. 
As winter came on, pneumonia in its most violent form, and 
scurvy, added their horrors. Father Judge visited the pros- 
_perous miners up the gold-bearing creeks, and sold tickets on 
a sort of insurance plan—the ticket entitled the holder to be 
cared for during his illness, or in case of disablement. These 
tickets were sold at from one hundred to four hundred dollars, 
according to the length of time insured and the accommoda- 
tions. A commodious log building sprang up as by magic, and 
a Catholic church took its station alongside of it. The Sisters 
of Mercy sent for did not arrive, but plenty of men who had 
come in “short of grub” were glad to act as nurses for their 
board. Saint Mary’s Hospital was filled as soon as it was 
opened and continued full all that winter. 

The very first day I spent in the camp I was called to see 


350 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


some Protestant patients, and thereafter, as long as I was in 
Dawson, I was almost a daily visitor, finding plenty to do for 
the poor stricken fellows. Father Judge and I were always 
great friends, although he was fond of theological controversy, 
and good-natured arguments took place daily. I found him 
an eager chess player, and the relaxation of the game was 
good for both of us. 

Another friend I found in Mr. Bowen, the young Episco- 
palian minister, who also had been a missionary to the Indians 
at Moosehide, an Indian camp two miles down the river. He 
had been sent by Bishop Bompas, the noted Church of Eng- 
land prelate, whose diocese was at Forty Mile on the borders 
of Alaska, fifty miles from Dawson. Mr. Bowen was a fine 
young fellow, unused to that kind of life but eager to do what 
he could. 

That first Sunday and its meeting formed an epoch in my 
life. I did not expect much of a congregation, but every seat 
was occupied, and a few were standing in the aisles. A tough- 
looking crowd of men, unshaved and dressed in rough mack- 
inaw suits, most of them wearing moccasins on their feet. The 
river trip had made such amenities as baths and shaving im- 
possible. Here at Dawson men were living mostly in tents, 
their houses not being ready. Not a woman attended that 
morning meeting. I found a man who had a little baby organ. 
He played for the dance halls. I hired him and his organ for 
five dollars a Sunday, on condition that the evening meeting 
would not be continued longer than nine o’clock, so that he 
could take his organ back to the dance hall. 

My plea for books had brought about a dozen Gospel hymn 
books and another dozen of different kinds, all having some of 
the good old hymns. And such singing! Mr. Fawcett, the 
gold commissioner, had been the leader of a choir; Mr. Hay- 
ward, a Methodist, too, had a fine tenor voice, and others 
came at the call for a choir; and everybody in the house sang. 


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RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 351 


Nearly all knew the words of the familiar hymns. I felt at my 
best. Here was an ideal congregation, not all professed Chris- 
tians, but all intelligent and eager for a message. A heart-to- 
heart talk without any thought of conventional sermon forms 
or theological expositions. Life there was too earnest and 
straightforward to admit of wasting time in such non-essentials. 
When it came to the collection, we used a “ blower,” the tin 
scoop used by the miners and merchants to handle gold dust 
and to pour it into gold scales or the buckskin pokes. The 
miners took pinches of dust from their pokes and cast it into 
the blower, while the chechacos still had coins and bills. 
Sixty dollars, as I remember, was the collection for that first 
day—an average of a dollar apiece for the sixty men present 
—a generous showing for men who were almost all of them 
“up against it.” 

A call for the organization of a Bible class the following 
Sunday, and a plea to make themselves known and help me 
in gathering together my flock, was stressed in the church 
notices. Before dismissing the congregation I bethought me of 
a problem: “ How will we light our building tonight?” There 
was no kerosene in the camp, the miners bringing in their own 
candles. The stock in the stores had been exhausted. “I have 
no candles myself,” I announced. ‘ You will have to help in 
this. Blow out the candle you would have to use in your tent 
or cabin, and burn it here. You will not burn any more of it 
than if you were alone in your cabin. You can take what is 
left home with you after the meeting, if you desire. I will 
furnish the candlesticks.” My every request that winter was 
heeded and met with a generous response. 

The weeks that followed were among the busiest of my life. 
First of all, the building I rented must be fitted with another 
window downstairs, and bunks provided for my roomers, and 
the hall made comfortable for the approaching sixty-below 
weather. I was doing the largest part of the work myself, get- 


352 . HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


ting help occasionally from those who were not too busy with 
their own work. 

It was a week or ten days before my house was completed 
and filled with lodgers. They paid in advance a month’s rent, 
and my own rent was secured. I had obtained possession, by 
the free act of the miners, of a miners’ library, which had 
been subscribed for and bought by the Forty Mile Prospectors. 
We had fifteen hundred volumes. The pioneers were eager to 
have me handle this library, and it was placed in the A C 
Company’s store, but was soon to be moved into our own 
building. These volumes, while mostly popular fiction, in- 
cluded many solid and helpful books—Carlyle, Emerson, the 
standard poets, historical works, and books of reference. As 
long as I was in Dawson I handled this library, and it was a 
great satisfaction to be able to give men of the camp some- 
thing to read. 

I soon began to explore the creeks, to make long trips up 
them to the very borders of the camp. My parish was sixty 
miles long. Bonanza Creek, which was some thirty miles in 
length, was a continuous village. You were never out of sight 
of cabins. Hundreds of the chechacos had taken “lays ” along 
that creek and were putting down holes here and there in hope 
of finding a pay streak. The royalty on these lays received 
by the owners varied from thirty to seventy-five per cent. of 
the gross output, according to the prospects of the claim. 
Here and there up the creeks were clusters of stores and lodg- 
ing houses. The principal village of this kind was at Grand 
Forks—sixteen miles from Dawson, where Eldorado Creek 
joined Bonanza. Here I established a regular meeting place 
in the ‘“‘ Hotel and Saloon ” of Miss Mulrooney, an Irishwoman, 
who greeted me very warmly when I first reached her hotel. 

“And it’s yourself!” she exclaimed. “ Don’t you mind 
me? ” 

“IT know I have seen you somewhere,” I ventured. 





RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 353 


“You remember the ladies I piloted to your mission at Fort 
Wrangell from the ‘ Queen’ when I was stewardess? ” 

“ Ah, I know you now,” I replied, “ and I am glad to find 
you here.” 

“‘ Now, tell me what I can do for you,” she asked. 

“JT am looking for a place to preach. I know you are a 
Catholic, but you are my friend, also. Can I hold a meeting 
in your saloon? ” 

‘‘ Sure, you can,” she answered heartily. ‘I will put me wet 
goods under the counter, and clear out the drunks, and let you 
have me place any time you want it.” 

So all that winter I preached in the house of the genial 
woman, who had a sharp tongue to command the boisterous 
ones and kept them quiet, and a strong arm to enforce her 
words. Other appointments were made later in the larger 
cabins and some of the roadhouses on Bonanza, Hunker and 
Dominion Creeks. 

Every phase of human need was typed in that great camp. 
So many men did not know how to cook their provisions, or 
else ‘had inadequate supplies. They would go frantically on 
wildcat stampedes, come back to their cabins worn out and 
discouraged, lie down in their bunks, and sleep until midday, 
get up and eat a half-cooked meal of pork and beans and soda. 
biscuits, and go back again to bed. Such men invariably got 
the scurvy. 

There was not in Dawson, after the first month or two, an 
orange, a lemon, an apple, a potato, an onion or an egg. 
Plenty of gold dust, but nothing that gold would buy. Twenty 
dollars was offered, in places, for potatoes, and no sellers 
found. We made tea of cottonwood twigs and even spruce 
needles, but this was not sufficient. At least one-third of the 
seven thousand men in the Klondike that winter were tainted 
with scurvy, and hundreds of deaths ensued. And there was 
that terrible type of pneumonia. It meant frozen lungs! Men 


354 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


stampeding when it was fifty and sixty below zero, inhaling 
lungsful of icy air, literally froze their cells. This condition 
resulted in terrific fever and madness. Some of our patients 
were homicidal madmen, trying to kill their nurses, and had 
to be subdued by main strength. The attacks lasted three or 
four days, and ended inevitably in the death of the patient. 

While there were medicines in Dawson, there was no proper 
diet, no fresh milk, no delicacies. The hospital and the doctors 
did fine work, but, oh, the funerals, the funerals! One day I 
had five of them, all for Protestants, and the number that 
Father Judge and Mr. Bowen buried were as many, while up 
the creeks many a poor fellow was put in the ground by his 
comrades without any ceremony. 

The life of a missionary in a raw camp like that, while most 
strenuous, if he takes it right and rises to its every occasion 
is the most joyful work in the world. This, chiefly because it 
is a life of sacrifice and service. Hardships are as you take 
them. The deprivations we met were shared by all, and so 
were no deprivations at all. We had no wants, because we 
created none. Our tables, made of boxes, our bunks of poles, 
our chairs of blocks of wood and our beds of spruce and hem- 
lock branches, gave us, with our Klondike stoves, all we really 
needed. Soon the melancholy ones became cheerful, and with 
the exception of a few, especially those stricken with no dis- 
ease, who died simply of homesickness, the camp rebounded 
to a joy in living and a courage in facing whatever came, such 
as I have never seen excelled anywhere. The harder the life, 
the greater the resilience of real men. 

The greatest calamity that ever befell me in the North has- 
tened to fall upon us the night of November twenty-first. Our 
roomers were happy in their rooms, our church attendance in- 
creased to the capacity of the building, the reading room 
patronized, branch meetings established, and everything was 
slipping along smoothly and hopefully. That night, about two 


RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 355 


o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by the cry of fire. 
Springing from my bunk, I saw a blaze in the center of the 
town. Getting into my clothes, I hurried down the street, my 
apprehensions growing as I sped, until I found our new church 
all in flames! Men were gathered around, making futile at- 
tempts to fight the fire. Only the hymn books could be re- 
moved from the church. The upstairs, with its fourteen out- 
fits of food, was a mass of flame. A young man who had 
come home intoxicated from a dance hall and had lurched down 
on his bunk without putting out his candle in its miner’s lamp 
socket, leaving it to melt and fall through and set fire to the 
blankets, was shivering in the snow—the cold sobering 
him. 

Napoleon Dupres was dancing about, cursing everything and 
everybody, but principally me, in broken English and bad 
French. Two or three owners of outfits who had hastily de- 
camped from the burning dwelling were standing disconsolately 
in the snow. Fifteen hundred dollars of my outlay in money, 
and all our plans, gone up in flames! The work so well begun, 
to be started all over again. A terrible blow aimed at our 
faith and courage! Nothing could be saved from the wreck; 
but to lie down and weep would have been foolish. Our reac- 
tion was to redouble our efforts. 

To add to my troubles, I was made the chairman of a relief 
committee for those men who had lost their outfits. The gold 
commissioner, Father Judge, Mr. Bowen and a number of the 
merchants met to discuss the steps to be taken to care for 
these fourteen or more men whose outfits were burned. They 
must be replaced somehow, or at least such provisions got to- 
gether as would keep them alive until more outfits could be 
bought in the summer. We had to make a canvass up the 
creek for dust. We got from the merchants enough provisions, 
to be paid for next summer at the prevailing prices of steam- 
boat goods, to supply the wants of these men and tide them 


356 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


over the winter. This meant sacrifice. I had to get still more 
deeply in debt. 

Two steps were taken to meet our own wants. Shortly our 
own provisions would be exhausted. I found some relief in 
this way: I had purchased at Portland a good Savage rifle, 
with a fair supply of ammunition. Word came that a herd of 
caribou had crossed the Klondike, forty miles from the town. 
I loaned my rifle to a young man who was an experienced 
hunter and who had a team of dogs. He went out and found 
the herd; he killed some fifty of the fine animals, and brought 
two of the carcasses to us. This delicious meat helped to keep 
us in health and spirits. But our staples were getting low. 

This problem was solved by Alec Gillis, who had sold us our 
cabin. He came to me with a proposition: “I am going out- 
side as soon as the Yukon is frozen solidly enough to bear trav- 
eling on it. I am coming in next summer with a good outfit. 
I will sell you the grub I have, at the rate of a dollar a pound, 
if you will give me an order on the outside for the money. I 
don’t want to pack any gold dust with me, for the Soapy 
Smith Gang are at Skagway waiting to hold up anybody who 
has cash. I simply want a paper that nobody else can make 
use of.” 

It was a desperate situation. I had drawn beforehand all 
the money that was coming to me from the mission Board for 
a year, with the exception of just enough to support my fam- 
ily. Nothing, therefore, would be due me from the Board until 
the next August. I pondered the matter in my desperation, 
and then sat down and wrote to the treasurer of the Board, in 
New York, a half-humorous and half-earnest letter. I did not 
whine or complain, but told the straits we were in; and then I 
asked that the order to Gillis for $500.00, for the five hundred 
pounds of staple goods I purchased from him, be honoured by 
the Board, promising to pay the amount from my next year’s 
salary. 





RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 357 


Alec took the order, and cashed it without difficulty in New 
York. I did not know until the next spring that our treasurer, 
Mr. Harvey D. Olin, that great and kind man, took my letter 
to the Sunday School of the Brick Church in New York, and 
read it without comment. Instantly one of the superintendents 
sprang up and moved that the Sunday School pay the’five hun- 
dred dollars. It was carried with enthusiasm, and the Board 
was not the loser. 

Another need in Dawson was met immediately. That night 
of the fire, before I left the grounds, my friend Bill McFee 
came to me and, putting his arms about my neck, said: “ Par- 
son,” and his voice was trembling, ‘‘ you are here to help us, 
and we all love you. I have a proposition to make to you. 
We fellows have just completed a hall built by the Yukon | 
Pioneers. I am going to propose to the fellows that they let 
you use it as a meeting house all winter without charge.” 

I learned this lesson from all of these experiences: That of 
all the people in the world the kindest are those who have 
passed through hard trials, have overcome innumerable dif- 
ficulties, and have learned the joy of sacrifice from those which 
they have been forced to make themselves; that the fellowship 
of the wilderness is the sweetest and warmest of all fellow- 
ships; and that the Golden Rule has its finest and best ex- 
emplification in the Great Northwest. 


XXXIV 


KING WINTER 


in the Klondike, I am embarrassed by crowding recollec- 

tions. It was the busiest winter of all my life. Perhaps 
on account of that fact it was the most joyful. Among other 
things, I was experiencing the delight of perfect health im a 
matchless climate. We had to fight the cold in order to exist. 
Those who have not undergone sixty-below weather cannot 
understand what that means. There is something savage, 
fierce and relentless about it. The cold pounces upon you and 
grips you like a vise—it will not let go. 

I had heard something about this intense cold from my 
friends in the Cassiar, and had provided Dr. McEwan and my- 
self with the warmest clothing obtainable in Portland, leaving 
out furs, of course, as these were beyond our means. Here we 
had thick woolen underwear, heavy flannel shirts, home-knit 
socks, mackinaw vests, coat and pants, huge German socks 
that came to the knees and very heavy mackinaw overcoats. 
The Klondike cap was an institution invented by necessity. 
It was mostly fur, with a heavy piece across the forehead, for 
there is where the cold strikes you hardest; thick flaps that 
come over your ears and around your neck and your throat. 
Mine also had a strip of fur, to fasten across the bridge of 
my nose. 

The difficulty of protecting the nose is this: To have any 
part of your cap catch the frosty breath that comes in puffs 
from your nostrils, means two large balls of ice as large as 
your fist, freezing your cheeks and your lips. You must not 
wear a mustache—it would catch the congealed breath and 

358 


[: selecting items from my experiences during that winter 


KING WINTER 359 


freeze your nostrils. Fur mittens, with large gauntlets, are 
also a necessity. No part of your body may be exposed to the 
weather. Above all things, no moisture must touch your skin, 
or that part of you will instantly freeze. There is one alleviat- 
ing circumstance about this Klondike cold—always during 
sixty-below weather the air is absolutely still. With a wind at 
that temperature no one could stir out of doors. Thirty de- 
grees below zero in the Nome country, with a blizzard howl- 
ing, is ten times harder to bear than sixty below in the Klon- 
dike. 

But one must be always on guard. The nose especially may 
be frozen very quickly, and very often. You will be racing 
along the frozen trail, exulting in your untiring muscles and 
the joy of living, when you will meet another musher whose 
ghastly white nose is a contrast to his red face. 

“ Your nose is frozen, Mister,” you will shout to him. 

“Thanks, so is yours.” 

You will each grab a handful of the granulated-sugar snow 
and race on, rubbing your proboscis with vigour, to restore 
the circulation. 

You must build your cabin absolutely air-tight. These little 
dwellings are usually constructed of straight spruce logs. If 
you are careful in building, each log is hewn smooth on the 
lower and upper sides so that it fits perfectly upon the log 
next to it. Between the logs you place with great care the 
abundant moss or lichen found in the woods. You drive in this 
packing with a calking iron. You have made a storm-shed in 
front of your door, and this has been carefully calked and 
made tight. You have torn up some of your flannel underwear 
and made listing for the cracks of the door. If you are a 
man of wealth and have taken pains to secure enough glass, you 
will have a double window, small but tight, with dead-air space 
between the two sashes. You will carefully bank up your 
cabin in the fall, so that no air can leak upward through the 


360 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


floor. Your Klondike stove is near the middle of the room, 
and the pipe, which will often be red-hot, is protected from 
contact with the woodwork by thimbles of sheet iron, perfor- 
ated with round holes for ventilation. 

Your blankets must be heavy and soft, and you should re- 
new your “‘ feather bed” of spruce branches very frequently. 
At the beginning of the winter you should provide from the 
river several cords of water—ice sawed in squares of thirty to 
fifty pounds each, piled up in an accessible place, and protected 
from pollution by dogs. You must have a strong, tight, thief- 
proof cache behind your house or in front of it, where your 
flour, beans and meat or any foodstuffs that will not spoil by 
freezing, may be stored. You have made out of your boxes 
a neat little table, which is generally a shelf inserted in the 
wall under your window and supported by two legs, and have 
provided other boxes or blocks of wood for seats. 

There, Mr. Bear, is your cozy den; but you are not to hi- 
bernate in it. You are going to be too everlastingly busy to 
have more than the necessary seven hours’ sleep; but you are 
going to enjoy life as you never did before—provided you 
keep busy. This constant activity out in the open air will 
safeguard you against scurvy, typhoid and that more fatal and 
terrible disease, nostalgia. If you stop working and yield to 
brooding and homesickness, you are gone! You will fall into 
the clutches of some one of the disease enemies that are found 
in all camps, or a self-inflicted bullet will end your earthly 
troubles and usher you into the more fearful one beyond. 

After two or three months of feverish prospecting the ten- 
derfeet were content to work “ lays ” or to hire out at a dollar 
and a half an hour to some one of the lucky few who owned 
large claims. Many grub-staked men who had found wild- 
cat locations and had staked them, settled down in their cabins 
until the spring would allow them to prospect their claims. 
These men either loafed around, and got the scurvy or typhoid, 


KING WINTER 361 


or else they gambled the nights through in the saloons and 
dance halls. Or, if they were the right kind, they got books 
from our library, and played chess, checkers or card games 
with one another, and so passed the winter. 

The lure of the gambling tables was very strong. For a 
man who had gone to the end of his money and was living 
scantily on his outfit, to witness others, by the fortunate turn 
of a wheel or a card, leap from poverty to affluence, was be- 
yond the power of many to withstand. I knew of scores of 
professed Christians, many of them real and sensible ones, 
and at least three Presbyterian elders, who became desperate 
gamblers that winter. But the great majority of the men 
were sensible, conscientious, of good character, with families at 
home, and would not risk the loss of the means to support them. 

I had brought in with me two sets of chess men, with 
checkers and dominoes. I organized a chess and checker 
club, and started it in my reading room in the church building 
before this burned. Afterwards we held our nightly club 
meetings in my little cabin, which was generally crowded. The 
three of us, Dr. McEwan, Will Farrington and I, occupied 
three of the four bunks at night, and after the fire I took in 
George Barrack, one of the roomers who had lost his outfit. 
But the calls of all kinds which came knocking at my door 
for multiplex services kept me away from the cabin about 
one-third of the nights that winter. 

Nowhere else in my ministry have I experienced so keenly 
the exhilaration of preaching, as at Dawson. I had no com- 
mentaries, books of quotations, or histories, and a very limited 
reference library; therefore, the whole system of sermonizing 
was changed. I swung out of the exposition style more and 
more into emphasizing Christianity as a life, rather than as a 
system of doctrine. And such an audience as I had would 
stimulate any preacher. My Bible class, conducted every 
Sunday morning after the regular services, was an inspiration. 


362 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Sometimes we had as many as forty men in attendance, all 
intelligent and earnest in their desire to know the higher and 
deeper truths of Christianity; not all of them professing Chris- 
tians, but all of them in dead earnest. Men grew rapidly 
better in the Klondike if they did not grow rapidly worse. 
There was no standstill. 

As the winter wore away, our distress at the non-arrival of 
the mail grew more and more acute. There was no excuse 
whatever for this delay. Sixty-five fine dogs, such as were 
used by the coureurs de bois of Eastern Canada, had been 
sent to carry the mail and bring the officials into the Klondike. 
But they did not come. Not one of us got a letter from the 
States in less than six months after we started into the Klon- 
dike. Tons and tons of mail lay piled up at Lake Bennett and 
especially at Tagish, the chief station of the mounted police 
of the upper river. It was reported, and generally believed, 
that Major Walsh and the other officials who had started early 
to the gold diggings were using these dogs in racing about the 
upper country to Big and Little Salmon Creeks, Lake Atlin 
and Hootalinqua and Stewart Rivers, in an effort to find claims 
in rumoured new diggings. Whether these rumours were true 
or not, the fact remains that the Canadian government grossly 
neglected the needs of the thousands who had rushed into the 
extreme Northwest. 

The distress in the camp on this account was very great. 
Nearly all of us were short of money. The claim owners who 
had found gold in abundance had not funds with which to 
pay their workmen for getting out big dumps for the spring 
sluicing. And the “lay” men on the creeks, as well as the 
day labourers, experienced a like shortage. There was very 
little coin or paper money circulating in the camp. Gold dust 
at sixteen dollars an ounce was the circulating medium. In 
addition to this, promises to pay, and notes secured by liens on 
the dumps, passed from hand to hand, 


i 





KING WINTER 363 


But the financial distress was nothing compared to the men- 
tal anguish which all of us experienced. Most of the men had 
families outside, and could not learn of their welfare. Num- 
bers had come into the Klondike in the late winter or early 
spring of 797, and had not been able to hear from their homes 
for a year or longer. They knew that their families were writ- 
ing them, but the letters were not coming in. Some had heard 
six or eight months ago of the illness of wife or child, and 
were consumed with anxiety. Judging by my own feelings, 
this suspension compelled thousands of those men to spend 
sleepless nights conjuring up fearful phantoms of ill. 

It was not until well on in March that the first dog team 
came, bringing mail to the Klondike. I can now see those 
Frenchmen, four of them, with two dog teams, the tall men 
swinging, one ahead and the other at the “ gee pole,” with 
long strides, making five or six miles an hour. They brought 
thirteen sacks, picked at random out of the hundreds piled up 
at Tagish. 

Right here I am going to act the part of an iconoclast and 
do some smashing of the idols which American Anglophiles 
and Canadian enthusiasts have set up. I am not wanting in 
respect for that heroic body of men called the Northwest 
Mounted Police, and the Canadian officers, but after a full 
experience in the frontiers of Canada and Alaska, I have not 
witnessed in the United States and Alaska anything in the 
way of graft that compared with the insolence, rank dishonesty 
and disrespect for the rights of men which I observed among 
the officials of the Yukon Province of Canada, and even in the 
mounted police. 

Now as to the mail: Thirteen sacks of letters with news from 
home! The glad tidings flashed to the farthest creeks. For 
sixty miles around the news spread: ‘‘ Letters from home, let- 
ters from home! ” Men left their diggings and struck the 
trail for Dawson. Those who could not leave their work 


364 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


banded together, and sent one of their number with orders 
from each one of them for the delivery of his mail. The town 
filled over night with anxious men, and still they were coming. 
Like the rest, I hung around the headquarters of the mounted 
police, avid for letters. Experienced railroad mail clerks and 
others who had served in post-offices in the United States of- 
fered their services to Captain Constantine to expedite the dis- 
tribution of the mail. The little captain tossed his head back 
in the important way he had, and replied: “ This is a matter 
for the mounted police.” 

That day wore away, and the next and next, without our 
being able to get any news or letters from home. Then a bul- 
letin was posted up announcing that in one week from the time 
of the arrival of this mail they would begin to distribute it! 
That long line of men already standing in the snow up and | 
down the street went wild. Two or three of the most experi- 
enced post-office men went to Captain Constantine and re- 
monstrated: ‘‘ Why, we can have all of that mail distributed in 
one day if you will let us handle it.” All expostulations were 
of no avail. The captain shut himself up away from visitors. 

I knew these mounted police. Some of them regularly at- 
tended my services; one or two sang in the choir. I was ad- 
mitted, as a special privilege, to the log building where the mail 
was looked over. A sergeant who had frozen his feet in a 
stampede hobbled from chair to chair directing the operations 
of two men who were opening the sacks and fumbling over 
the letters. Along the floor of the long room were piles and 
piles of letters. The sergeant would look long at one, read 
the address, hand it to one of the other men, and he would take 
it to the appropriate letter pile which was arranged according 
to the alphabet and deposit it there. If the pile was getting 
top heavy, he would take the little roll of red tape on which 
the letters were placed and tie up the bundle. When another 
letter came for that particular letter of the alphabet, he would 





KING WINTER 365 


untie the bundle, slip the letter in and it would be tied up 
again. ‘There were no boxes in which to pitch the letters, no 
facilities for rapid work. The experienced men who looked on 
were full of disgust, and vented their feelings in profanity. 
The hundreds who had come for mail returned to the creeks 
awaiting the announced day for its distribution. 

One day before the set date another bulletin was posted 
stating the place and time when the mail would be distributed, 
and it contained the further order that those who were ex- 
pecting mail must come for it themselves, and that written 
orders would not be honoured. The hardship which that order 
entailed cannot be imagined. It meant that whole gangs of 
workmen, frantically getting out gold dust, must discontinue 
their labour and come in person long distances to receive their 
letters. 

But we soon discovered that even these hard regulations 
were not “on the square.” The second day after the arrival 
of the mail I met my friend, Bill Liggett, of Thirteen Eldorado. 
He had a pile of letters in his hand and was looking them over 
and tearing them open as he walked to his cabin. 

“Why, Bill! ” I exclaimed. ‘“ How did you get your let- 
ters?” } 

“Oh! an ounce! ” he answered. 

That meant that he had been compelled to pay an ounce of 
gold—sixteen dollars—to one of those mounted police to look 
over the “ L’s ” and get him his letters. Other friends of mine 
were marching to headquarters, paying like sums and getting 
theirs “on the side.” It was a great temptation to all of us 
to fall in with this bribery and obtain our letters before the set 
time. I am still in doubt as to whether I was justified in “ fall- 
ing for it.” I had not the requisite “ ounce,” but possessed a 
five-dollar Canadian bill, and marched up to the mounted 
police headquarters. My question was, ‘‘ These poor, hard- 
working mounted police, who are receiving a miserably low 


366 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


wage and are seeing men getting almost as much in a day for 
working down in the mines as they are receiving for a month’s 
salary—is it wrong to help them a little?” At any rate, I 
fell, and went to interview my friend the sergeant. He hobbled 
towards me as I beckoned him. I slipped him the bill. He 
smiled, and said, ‘‘ Come back this evening.” I returned, and 
received ten letters. I rejoiced “as one that findeth great 
spoil.” But to this day, when I am inclined to be self- 
righteous, this bribery of the police, to quote Dr. Weir 
Mitchell, “ sits like a toad in the corner of my mind and sneers 
at me.” 

There was an expression often used among the gold diggers 
that such and such a creek was “spotted.” ‘That meant that 
you could not rely upon the continuity of the pay-streak, which 
was liable to be broken here and there, the gold disappearing. 
and occurring again in unexpected places. My “ pay-streak ” 
of letters was ‘spotted.’ Six months had elapsed, and I 
knew my wife was writing me every week and that there were 
many other letters being sent to me from other parties. Six 
letters from my wife appeared. She numbered all of her letters 
while I was in the Klondike and in other camps. The earliest 
in date of the six I received at that time was Number Two 
and the latest Number Twenty-four. I read them over at least 
a dozen times. 

Then the week elapsed, the town filled up again. The tem- 
perature was about ten degrees below zero, and the snow was 
falling heavily. Some of the men in the line had taken their 
places at nine and ten o’clock the night before, and had stood 
in line all of that time, afraid to move lest they should lose 
their place. The line, which was double, stretched up the 
street for three blocks. It was a pitiful sight. Men were 
stepping from foot to foot restlessly, and nearly all had pyra- 
mids of snow on their caps and shoulders; many were munch- 
ing food brought to them by their comrades. When the door 


KING WINTER 367 


was opened it was announced that sixteen men would be ad- 
mitted at one time. The line advanced and when that number 
arrived, eagerly pressing into the room of the post-office, a red 
arm shot across the door and it was shut. I counted the time, 
and it took an average of twenty minutes to hand the mail to 
the sixteen men admitted. Then the door would be opened 
again, and the next sixteen admitted. When four o’clock came 
in the afternoon the door was shut, and it was announced that 
it would be opened again the next morning. Not one-third of 
the mail had been distributed! That night the graft was re- 
peated on a larger scale, and it was estimated that over a thou- 
sand dollars was reaped by the mounted police from those who 
paid them to get their mail out of regular turn! It took four 
days to distribute those thirteen sacks of mail. It spoke well 
for the character of those pioneers, nine out of ten of whom 
were from the United States, that they would submit to such 
treatment without a riot. 

Some ten days after the arrival of the first mail came an- 
other, and the same scenes were repeated. This time the pro- 
tests became so numerous that the captain employed a larger 
force of assistants, and even allowed two or three American 
mailmen to work without pay and assist in the distribution of 
the mail. There was a larger mail this time. Again I fell into 
temptation, and got some of my letters “on the side.” After 
the line was served on the previous mail I went to the post- 
office and received six more letters. This time, in spite of the 
fact that I had gotten fifteen letters on the side, I stood in 
line the second day of distribution and received a lot more. 
There were still many of my letters, perhaps one-third of them, 
that did not reach me even in the third mail which came in 
over the ice before the spring break-up, and I did not receive 
them until the ice cleared out of the river in June and the mail 
remaining at Tagish was shipped down the river. 

Many heart-breaking scenes were witnessed that spring in 


368 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


connection with the mail. In one case a young wife had 
written her husband early in the fall, telling him of her illness 
and increasing disease, and begging him to take the winter 
trail and come home. He would have obeyed the first sum- 
mons, but did not receive it until too late; the last letter from 
home announced her death. Business disasters, family be- 
reavements, other bad news; troubles that would have been 
averted had the mail arrived; all of these lay at the door of 
a careless government and venal officers. 

But the abundant news most of us received overbalanced 
the anxiety and disappointment of others. The war-cloud 
which was hovering over the United States, trouble with Spain 
over Cuba, the call for troops, the enlisting of thousands of 
soldiers, such news as this reached us, not through papers, 
for none of those came in the mail, but chiefly through news- 
paper clippings sent by such wives as mine in their letters. 
Mrs. Young was especially thoughtful and diligent in sending 
important clippings of this war news. I was keeping the 
library in the A C Company’s store, and was in attendance 
daily. I filled two large paper boxes with loose clippings, and 
that store was besieged with miners eagerly devouring the news 
from the States. After the clippings had been scanned by the 
miners I sent them to St. Mary’s Hospital, where they would 
do still more missionary work. 

In many ways, besides the mails, the government officials of 
Canada fell far down in our estimation. When I bought my 
little cabin from Gillis he said he could not give me a deed to 
the lot, which was 25 x 40 feet, because it was on government 
ground, and a price would be asked for it when the proper 
officials came in. I had paid so much for the cabin that I 
was naturally anxious about the price I would have to pay for 
the lot. I consulted my friend, Mr. Fawcett. ‘“ You need not 
worry about that,” he said. “ All the government will ask will 
be a sum sufficient to pay for the survey of these lots—perhaps 


ES 


KING WINTER 369 


eight or ten dollars at the most.” With the first mail came 
the Judge, who was to hold court. With a number of other 
lot holders, I asked him what he thought would be the price of 
the lots. 

‘““T cannot answer that question,” replied the Judge. ‘‘ The 
land commissioner, who will be in shortly, will attend to 
that.” 

‘““Can’t you give me an estimate of the probable price? ” I 
insisted. 

“Oh, only a small fee will be charged. No part of Canada 
charges more than five to eight dollars for such lots,” he said. 

When Major Walsh, the newly appointed governor, arrived 
with the next mail over the ice, a number of us, with myself 
as spokesman, went to pay our respects, and incidentally asked 
him concerning the price of the lots on which our cabins stood. 
“Oh, that need not concern you,” he said. “It will be only 
a trifle. Mr. Wade, the land commissioner, will set a price 
when he arrives, as that comes under his jurisdiction.” 

We heard rumours of high assessments. Thousands of men 
were arriving every day; these had packed their goods over the 
Chilcoot Pass or by horses over the White Pass during the 
winter, had sledded them to the foot of Lake Lebarge and 
there had left most of them, bringing on their sleds just enough 
to last until the river would open. The chechacos were 
naturally anxious to build cabins, and were looking for loca- 
tions, and they must know the price of the lots before ventur- 
ing to build upon them. I headed a delegation and went to 
see Mr. Wade, the land commissioner. He was a fat, bluff 
fellow, who looked at us suspiciously, and answered gruffly: 
“JT cannot fix a price on these lots in a day. I will have to 
look over the ground, and see the locations.” 

“ But you can give us some idea of what it will be,” I in- 
sisted. ‘‘ Here are all these men, hundreds of them, wanting 
to build cabins, but they cannot venture until they have some 


370 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


idea of how much they will have to pay for the lots on which 
they build.” 

“Qh, it won’t be much,” he replied. ‘ But I will tell you 
this—the more cabins that are built, the less each one will 
have to pay for his own. Tell the men to go on and build; 
that no deed can be given for any lot until the beginning of 
a cabin is made on it, so as to hold the property. I will set 
a day for the assessment on the lots.” 

Then the news spread that the price would be small, and 
all that army of newcomers began frantically to select lots and 


build. A bulletin said that the walls‘must be up six feet be- © 


fore the lots could be secured. On the appointed day my 
friends and I were at Mr. Wade’s office. He kept us waiting 
a long while, and then came out with a large plat and an- 
nounced the price that had been assessed on the lots. My 
little 25 x 40 foot lot was assessed two hundred and fifty dol- 
lars, and those around it a like amount, while those farther 
back were a little less. 

Of course we loudly protested. We cited what the other 
officers had said, and went in a body to Major Walsh and 
filed a protest, reminding him what he had told us concerning 
the government policy in such cases. He was uneasy, and 
wiggled about in his chair: “‘ It is too much, it is too much. I 
must talk with Wade about that.” 

“But you said positively that it would not be more than 
ten dollars,” I remonstrated, ‘“‘ just enough to pay for the sur- 

“Well, the government will not get more than that much.” 
Then he bethought himself of what he was saying: ‘‘ Good- 
day, gentlemen. I will talk to Wade about it.” 

Evidently the governor was “in” with Wade on this graft, 
or else was so much under his influence that he dared not pro- 
test. I succeeded in getting my lot for a hundred and fifty 
dollars, but others did not fare so well. Some simply aban- 


—— oe 


KING WINTER 371 


doned their lots and the logs they had gotten together, and 
went up the creeks. Here they could build without having to 
pay such an enormous tax. 

Mr. Wade lasted only four months in the Klondike, and then 
was recalled, as the result of the numerous appeals sent to 
Ottawa on account of his flagrant dishonesty. When he was 
about to board the steamer on his way out, an exasperated 
miner who had lost heavily on account of Wade’s extortions, 
roared: “ If I can’t get justice, I will take it out of your hide! ” 
knocked him down in the government warehouse, and gave him 
a good beating. Wade had to take it, but consoled himself 
with his loot, and boasted: “I don’t mind a thing like that, 
for I have cleared four hundred thousand dollars in the time 
I have been here.” 

The sequel of this case is still worse. We had corrupt court 
officials at Nome in 1900-1 in the notorious Noyes-McKenzie 
loot of the miners, but their graft was promptly detected. 
Most of the gold they had stolen from the Swedish owners of 
claims on Anvil Creek was restored, the United States Court 
of Appeals reversing the decisions of the Nome Court; the 
judge and Mr. McKenzie were jailed, and honest officials sent 
to undo the damage. But there in the Klondike, though Mr. 
Wade was recalled and Governor Walsh soon lost his office, 
inside of a year Mr. Wade was returned, as “ crown attor- 
ney,” to pursue his nefarious business of graft in a still more 
insolent and lucrative way, and to carry off with him still 
more hundreds of thousands in gold. 

Mr. Fawcett rated in public opinion as our one honest of- 
ficial and, I believe, deserved the praise. But it is a well- 
known fact that some of the clerks in his office gained large 
sums by selling information concerning claims on which gold 
had been discovered, delaying the recording of these claims 
until “jumpers ” could set their stakes, and then announcing 
to the discoverers that others had been ahead of them. On 


372 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


account of this graft our Christian commissioner lost his posi- 
tion, while the real culprits were unpunished. As one of the 
American miners said, “‘ These Canucks can give the Yanks 
cards and spades, and then beat them all hollow, at the graft 
game.” 

A glaring extortion was perpetrated by the Canadian govern- 
ment itself. Contrary to the general practice in all other min- 
ing regions, the government at Ottawa assessed ten per cent. 
on the gross output of the claims in the Klondike. These 
claims were for the most part let out in “lays.” The lay men 
delivered over to the owners of the claims a royalty, amount- 
ing on an average to fifty per cent. of the gold they dug. 
Many of the claims were so moderate in value that the ten 
per cent. assessed by the government took all they made after 
paying wages to their labourers, heavy rates for lumber, the - 
board of their men and other expenses. Thousands of these 
lay men, who had borrowed money at as high as ten per cent. 
per month interest, giving a lien on their dumps, found them- 
selves at the close of the season out and injured, without gold 
and deeply in debt. 

All of these complaints must be poured into my sym- 
pathetic ears, but in spite of it the camp was a cheerful one, 
and the fact that men came to me with their troubles en- 
hanced my influence over them. 





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XXXV 
FRUITION 


years ago emphasizes one fact: That a minister who 

joins a stampede, if he is to be successful, must lose 
all sense of any difference between himself and other men—I 
mean, all “holier than thou” feeling—and become simply a 
man among men. He should be able to do whatever there is 
to do, with hands, head and heart. He ought to know how to 
build his own church or his own house, if he has to do that; 
to mush along the trail, with his dogs or alone, when it is sixty 
below, and like it and keep comfortable. He should know 
how to make a cozy camp in the woods during severe cold 
weather without suffering or grumbling. He should be able 
to cook for himself month after month with scanty and monot- 
onous fare, without committing suicide. If he cannot do these 
physical things and observe this mental attitude, he has no 
business in the Northland, and the people of that land will do 
no business with him. 

Without in any degree losing my own respect for my call- 
ing, I learned not to vaunt my office or to pose as a preacher 
in habit or dress, but rather to put all that in the background. 
In a real sense, a minister on such a mission must be a “ good 
sport ”—a cheerful loser and a gracious winner. 

It became a matter of pardonable pride to know that I could 
take my fishing line and my gun into the untrodden wilds any- 
where in that land, and not go hungry or lose my strength; 
that I could meet any inhabitant of the wilderness, white or 
native, on his own trail, partake of his fare in his shack and 
leave him more happy and contented than when I came; that 

Ra 


A MENTAL review of that life in the Northland thirty 


374 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


I could be elected as judge of a dog race as readily as I could 
be chosen chairman of a religious committee. 

As Easter approached we began to gather in the fruits of 
the winter’s work. I had become acquainted with most of the 
Christian people on all the creeks, and we were ready for or- 
ganization. Outside of the Church of England and the Cath- 
olic Church, I was the only representative of the ministry at 
work in the Klondike that winter. Men of all denominations 
flocked to our church in Pioneer Hall. The membership of 
fifty-nine that we were able to muster at the organization, on 
Easter Day, represented eleven different denominations. ‘That 
number did not include, by any means, all of our following— 
only a tithe of it. Of the fifty-nine who enrolled only nine 
were women. That sex had very few representatives in the 
Klondike that first winter, and still fewer worthy ones. Nine 
of the men joined on confession of their faith, and the others 
on statement of affiliation elsewhere. 

The organization was effected in regular form. When it 
came to the election of the elders, three men were chosen—Mr. 
Fawcett, our beloved commissioner; Mr. Hayward from Ta- 
coma; and Mr. Wells, a lawyer from California, all Meth- 
odists. When it came to that article in our book which re- 
quires the elders to adopt the Confession of Faith as contain- 
ing the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures, there was 
some hesitation as to whether Methodists could qualify for 
such an office. They asked to know what the Confession of 
Faith taught. I had no copy with me, but had a summary 
of doctrine in a Form Book, and this satisfied them com- 
pletely. ‘“‘ That is what we have always believed,” they said, 
and so were ordained. The five trustees represented four de- 
nominations, two Congregationalists, one Baptist, one member 
of the Church of Christ, and one Presbyterian. This latter 
was Mr. Cadenhead of Winnipeg, the chief surveyor of the 
mounted police. 


I 


FRUITION 375 


The spring break-up of the ice on the Yukon is always a 
very great event. Of late years pools have been formed for 
guessing the time of the break-up, and large sums of money 
have been realized by the lucky ones. We were too new at 
the game, and too hard up for money, to venture upon any 
such hazard, but the whole camp was agog for the event. I 
have no record of the date, but it was about the middle of 
May, when signs of spring became evident; the birds had 
come from the South and were singing their full-throated songs 
of welcome; the mosquitoes were also singing theirs, but not so 
welcome; the poor scurvy patients hobbled out of their cabins 
to sun themselves on logs, and those at St. Mary’s Hospital 
gathered on the front porch, waving feeble hands and rejoic- 
ing at the prospect of recovery when the “spuds” should 
arrive. 

The snow had melted off the sunny slopes, and gardening 
had begun. Joyful grumblings and crackings were heard from 
the big river as the tributary streams filled from the melted 
snow. Here and there along the margins water was running 
over the ice. The day was a sunny one, and the old-timers 
were so confident of the break-up that Dawson was out on 
the bank en masse. Towards evening the cry was heard, 
“Here she comes! ” Strange rearing forms as of a fox hunt 
in old England with hounds and horses leaping, appeared up 
the river; then the roar as of an avalanche mingled with 
cracks of artillery and booms of large guns, and an under- 
tone as of surf on breakers, filled the air. Down the river 
rushed the horde of charging figures; now the dogs and horses 
changed to dinosaurs and vitalized houses leaping into the air. 
Here a great triangle of ice would shoot up seventy feet or 
more. There with a slow heave a rounded dome would loom 
thirty feet above the surface, and then break into sharp slabs 
of ice and subside in the foaming mass. Crack! Smash! 
Roar! it came. The edges of ice two or three feet thick 


376 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


crumbled, reared, sank, dissolved. The tide of the river rose 
higher and higher, until it filled the banks, the great slabs of 
ice damming the river. All the cabins on the flats were de- 
serted at once, their tenants racing towards higher ground, 
carrying what they could of their most precious possessions. 
The rising and falling of the water was like the surface of the 
ocean following a mighty storm. Then, as rapidly as it had 
risen, the water subsided, and a tremendous army of millions 
of ice cakes, ranging in size from a foot square to an acre, 
swept down the river. 

“We are not chechacos any longer, we are sourdoughs! ” 
shouted the men and women. 

The camp rejoiced: ‘‘ Now our friends will launch their 
boats on the upper Yukon, and soon the camp will be alive 
with new people, and we will enjoy fresh vegetables, fruits, 
meats and eggs.” Nowhere else in the world does spring mean 


so much and meet with such welcome as in those camps of the. 


North. 

I was on the waterfront near the close of a warm day the 
last of May. I heard shouting, and witnessed a surge of the 
crowd towards the little cove where boats would come in out 
of the river current. Men were excited, hustling one another, 
crowding towards this point. Hands were waving gold sacks 
high in the air. When I got near enough I could distinguish 
the cries: ‘“‘ Here, I want some! ” “I'll take a dozen!” “See 
my dust here—I’m in on this! ” 

Finally I elbowed my way to the bank, and found a small 
boat of rough boards filled with goods. One man stood in the 
bow with a small pair of gold scales in his hand, and a blower; 
another stood in the center of the boat handing out eggs from 
a box which had been opened. The miners were eagerly crowd- 
ing and bidding for the eggs. One would receive six or a dozen 
of the precious “ cackleberries,” would tender his gold poke, 
and the weigher would pour some dust into the scoop, dash it 


FRUITION 377 


quickly into the scale, up would fly the weight, into the boat- 
man’s strong box the gold would be thrown, and the buyer 
would walk proudly off with his eggs. He had paid the sum of 
two dollars an egg for his precious “‘ hen fruit ’—yes, more than 
that, for the receiver of the gold had not been particular in 
weighing it, and the buyer was too proud to kick. Thirty 
dozen eggs brought seven hundred and twenty dollars, and 
the owner boasted that he had received a thousand dollars from 
the careless weighing. Considering that the eggs had been 
bought in Seattle for twenty-five cents a dozen and that they 
were not new-laid, being at least six weeks old, an idea can 
be had of the hunger of these men for something fresh. 

The joy of spring made men liberal. I received presents of 
apples, oranges, onions and potatoes, all of which articles sold 
for a dollar apiece. In a few more days more cases of eggs 
came in, and the price came down to eight dollars a dozen and 
remained so until fall. I was coming one Monday from my 
meeting at The Forks, sixteen miles from Dawson, packing on 
my back a sack of gold dust containing ten thousand dollars 
and weighing fifty pounds. For taking this gold dust from 
Eldorado to Dawson I received twenty-five dollars. My com- 
panions on the trail were Captain Ellis, the owner of an El- 
dorado claim, and a Miss Morrison, a young lady who had 
been a school-teacher but had got the gold fever and had 
come down the river on one of the first boats. She dressed 
like a man, and enjoyed her first experience in roughing it. 
After the fashion of those days, we hit the trail about seven 
o'clock in the evening. It would be daylight all night, and 
the air was cooler than in the middle of the day. We trudged 
along single-file, splashing through the mudholes and picking 
our way around the deeper pools. At eleven o’clock we stopped 
at an improvised roadhouse on lower Bonanza to get a meal, 
as we were quite hungry by that time. Captain Ellis treated 
us, and ordered bacon and eggs and coffee. We had fresh 


378 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


biscuits and potatoes besides. The cost of our midnight meal 
was six dollars each, and Captain Ellis paid it with joy. 

One day one of the New York reporters came to my cabin 
breathless with news. “I have just heard that a ‘ P-I’ 
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer) has come to the camp with won- 
derful news of the war. Let’s go and find the owner of that 
paper.” 

So we hiked to the mouth of the Klondike, where the man 
had just landed with his boat. We hurried up to him. It 
was the last of May, and he had a paper dated the second of 
May, which contained the news of Dewey’s victory at Manila. 

“How much for the paper? ” we asked. 

The newcomer had not as yet “ got onto ” his job and said, 
“I don’t know; it is nearly a month old.” 

“We will give you $10.00 for it,” we said. 

“It’s yours,” he quickly replied, and handed it over. 

We went to the trustees of the Pioneer Hall and secured 
the use of the hall for one night, paying twenty-five dollars. 
We placarded the town with signs reading: 


Wonderful News! Victory at Manila! 
CoME AND Hear IT READ AT PIONEER HALL. 
Joaquin Miller will read his famous poem 
“To My Comrades of the Chilcoot.” 
Male Quartette and Other Music 


Come and Hear from Home! 


Admission $2.50 Proceeds for St. Mary’s Hospital. 


The reporter attended to the advertising. Nearly all the 
war news we had received before had been by means of clip- 
pings. The crowd was crazy for news. At eight o’clock in the 
evening we admitted as many as could crowd into the hall, 
those who could not get in being assured there would be an- 
other chance for them after two hours. We took turns at read- 
ing the paper. We read the account of the great victory, 





FRUITION 379 


stories of the enlistment of soldiers all over the United States 
and other miscellaneous news. Our quartet sang from time to 
time, and the poet repeated his Chilcoot poem and others of 
his writings. At the close of the program we let the crowd 
depart, and instantly the house was filled again. We repeated 
the program to three audiences that night, and at two o’clock 
desisted, hoarse and tired. We cleared over six hundred dol- 
lars for the hospital. 

The next night we announced a reduction of the price of ad- 
mission to one dollar, filled the hall again, read to four audi- 
ences, and cleared some four hundred and fifty dollars for the 
new Good Samaritan Hospital, which we were erecting under 
the auspices of our Klondike church. This paper was the only 
one that came in before the break-up of Lake Lebarge, which 
occurred about the twelfth of June. The rotting of the ice 
on the lakes and the break-up made a cessation of some two 
weeks in our news. Then came in another paper with news of 
the siege of Santiago and other war news. We were looking for 
the owner, but unfortunately he had heard of the money we 
made on the former paper; so he kept his, hired the hall himself 
and put the price of admission at a dollar and a half, read it to 
four audiences and cleared between six and seven hundred 
dollars, making a good grub-stake from his investment of five 
cents. 

Now came the vast army of gold seekers, business men, 
traders, crooks and camp followers. Thousands of tents filled 
the flats and clung to the hillsides. Twenty thousand boats 
and scows descended the rapids from Bennett. These, swelled 
in number later by those who came up the Yukon on steam- 
boats, increased the population at Dawson to a figure variously 
estimated at from forty to fifty thousand. Not only tender- 
feet from the States, but old-timers from the gold fields of 
Colorado, California and British Columbia, and even from 
Australia and South Africa, hastened to the new strike. These 


380 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


experienced men, full of the courage and sense of freedom and 
justice of their former camps, helped to bring order out of 
confusion and to put a curb upon the avarice and dishonesty 
of those inclined to exploit the camp for their own gain. 

With the army of gold seekers came a number of preachers 
—three Canadian Presbyterian, one Wesleyan Methodist, one 
Lutheran, one Salvation Army and others. The Presbyterian 
ministers from the Canadian Church were headed by Dr. 
Andrew Grant, who was superintendent of the new enterprise. 
He was a tall, brawny, freckle-faced Scotchman, with much 
previous experience on the frontiers, an able, resourceful man. 
He had the bluff manner possessed by most of the Canadians 
and those from the British Isles. His first word to me was, 
“What are you doing here? ” intimating that I was encroach- 
ing on his territory. It was the attitude taken by many Cana- 
dians and Englishmen towards the Americans. By that time 
the United States had decided that the Klondike was in British 
territory, but the Canadians had not yielded to the claim of 
the United States that Skagway and all of the coast of South- 
eastern Alaska belonged to this country. Dr. Grant and those 
with him naturally felt that I was on their ground, and had 
no authority to organize the Klondike church. 

But we got along very well, considering the difference in 
our standpoints, and alternated in conducting services and the 
other duties of the ministry. We had organized the Good 
Samaritan Hospital, and I had raised some money for it, and 
had also begun the labour of building a new log church. We 
went on with this labour, I doing most of the canvassing up 
the creeks. 

But it soon became apparent to me that my organization 
must be turned over to the Canadians. The Yukon Province 
of Canada had been fully organized, and new officers were 
being sent in—not only to Dawson but to other camps. While 
I was invited by Dr. Grant and the Canadian Church to re- 





FRUITION 381 


main as pastor of the church I had organized, I soon found 
that this would not do at all. It would necessitate my becom- 
ing a Canadian citizen and relinquishing the dream which was 
beginning to float before my vision of the evangelization of 
the great Territory of Alaska. 

Fully five-sixths of those who joined the Klondike stampede 
were from the United States. Not one in ten of those who 
landed at Dawson could get rich claims in that region. News 
of gold discoveries within the borders of Alaska, at Rampart, 
Circle City, Eagle, up the Koyukuk and on the Northwestern 
Coast was rumoured about the camp. Almost immediately 
began an exodus from Dawson down the river by those who 
had built their boats at Bennett and Lebarge and were ready 
to go on to the undiscovered country down the Yukon in hope 
of finding rich camps in what the Americans, disgusted with 
Canadian misrule, called ‘‘ God’s Country.” 

During the early summer I made a trip by steamboat down 
the Yukon, stopping at Eagle long enough to preach and con- 
sult with the Christian people there concerning the establish- 
ment of a mission. This was a new and thriving little town, 
just across the border from Canada. Casting about for a place 
to preach, I entered a saloon at Eagle. Soon I secured the 
hearty permission of the saloon-keeper to use his saloon tent 
as a place of meeting. He put his wet goods out of sight and 
helped me improvise benches and get ready for our service. 
The tent was well filled, and the singing and all the service 
inspiring. Without exception, I found this attitude of mind 
in all the new camps. Thousands of people from churches in 
the East come with every stampede, and although many grow 
careless and neglect the outer forms of their religion, the 
faith is still there, and other thousands are hungry and thirsty 
for the preached word. 

Then down the Yukon to Circle City, which is two hundred 
and eighty miles down the river from Dawson. This was an 


382 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


old town and had been a very thriving one. It was said to 
be the largest purely log cabin town on the continent, for no 
sawmills had been built there. I did not stop off at Circle or 
take steps to establish a church there, because I found the 
Episcopal Mission had ministered to that town, and one of 
their pastors was at work. I made it a rule in my pioneer 
days that in small camps where one could do the work ef- 
ficiently, if there was a man of another denomination there I 
would move on. Over-churching small camps and towns is 
not only a foolish mistake, but it is a crime against the real 
work of the Church. 

Fort Yukon was another mission ministered to in early 
times by the Church of England; it is now occupied by the 
American Episcopal Church, Rev. Peter Rowe, Episcopal 
Bishop of Alaska, having commenced his work there. . 

But Rampart, four hundred miles down the Yukon, was dif- 
ferent. Here large numbers of gold seekers, desperately striv- 
ing to reach Dawson, in the fall of 97 had been blockaded 
by the ice and forced to spend the winter there, seven hundred 
miles from their goal. A number of steamboats laden with 
passengers and goods for the Klondike were tied up in that 
vicinity. An Indian brought into the camp some gold dust, and 
Manook Creek, named after the chief of a small tribe near by, 
was discovered and staked. A very busy and thriving town 
had arisen as if by magic. I stopped off here, and was in camp 
a week or more before a steamboat up the river could convey 
me back to Dawson. Here again was real pioneering work, 
and the excitement and joy of it still stirs my blood. I found 
Christians, a lot of them, in the camp. Boats were coming 
down the river, and their crews were stampeding in all direc- 
tions, hunting for gold. Two large companies had built stores, 
many saloons were in evidence, and all the signs of a pros- 
perous camp were in the air. There was no house available 
for my first Sunday service, but a great pile of logs on the 


FRUITION 383 


bank afforded seats for my audience. A man with a cornet 
was found and engaged, placards called a meeting, and there 
were perhaps a hundred and fifty men lolling on the sand. We 
had a great meeting, disturbed only by the swarm of mos- 
quitoes. After the service I raised money sufficient to purchase 
a mission site at Rampart. Then back to Dawson, to con- 
tinue my work in company with Dr. Grant and Mr. Dickey. 

Late in August I took a little steamer up the river. This 
boat had been built at Bennett and had been lined down 
White Horse Rapids and brought to Dawson. We had to 
portage at White Horse, take another steamer above the rapids, 
and so back to Bennett. Then I tramped over the White Pass 
Trail, thirty miles to Skagway. Here I found Rev. Mr. Sin- 
clair, another Canadian minister, a man of fine ability and 
with the true spirit of a pioneer. He had already erected a 
church there. Mr. Dickey, the first Canadian minister who 
preached at that point, had reached the camp soon after I 
left it, and had spent the early part of the winter erecting a 
community church. 

The year that had elapsed since I had taken the Klondike 
trail from Skagway had worked an amazing transformation in 
that town. Then it had been but a confused camp in the 
woods, without houses, stores, law or order. Now it was a 
neat little city of from six to seven thousand people, with 
four large docks, a good water system, electric lights, tele- 
phones, the beginning of a railroad, and all the comforts and 
luxuries of a civilized city. Four or five large hotels accom- 
modated travelers, a United States commissioner held court, 
two companies of United States soldiers assisted in keeping 
order. Soapy Smith and his gang were no more. This ener- 
getic and unscrupulous leader of crooks, after dominating the 
new town and having his own evil way most of the winter, 
had met his deserts. Trying to break up a meeting of im- 
provised vigilantes convened for the purpose of putting an 


384 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


end to Soapy’s reign, which meeting was held at the warehouse 
on one of the docks, Soapy had gone too far, had attacked with 
his gang a guard posted at the entrance of the wharf, and in a 
duel which lasted but a minute Soapy was shot dead and the 
guard was so badly wounded by him that he died in three or 
four days. The gang was dispersed, and most of its members 
were apprehended, taken to Sitka for trial and sent to the 
penitentiary. Skagway was an orderly, neat, law-abiding city, 
and the church was flourishing. Other denominations were be- 
ginning to build. 

I sailed to Seattle in a few days, and on my arrival somewhat 
stirred the church people of that booming city with the re- 
ligious news from the Klondike, meeting many of those whom 
I had known in the gold camps. I communicated by letter and 
telegram with headquarters in New York, and was directed to 
return to Skagway, take over the church and send Mr. Sinclair 
into the interior. I sailed back to Skagway, but did not re- 
main. I found Mr. Sinclair was too late to make the trip to 
Dawson, that he was doing splendid work at Skagway and was 
much beloved there. Therefore, I made arrangements that he 
remain, finish his building projects and act his part as pastor 
there, being supported by the Presbyterian Board, and then 
go into the interior in the spring, when he would be relieved 
by one of our American preachers. 

All of this took about three weeks. In late September I took 
train at Seattle, stopped a day or two at the meeting of the 
Synod of Washington, which convened at Spokane, and then 
joyfully home to my family at Wooster, and on to New York 
to lay plans for a greater enterprise. 





XXXVI 


THE NOME RUSH 


Y reception in New York and among the Eastern 
M churches was warmer than I had anticipated and 
far better than I deserved. The chief topic of con- 
versation everywhere was the Klondike, and the secretary of 
the mission Board was deluged with demands for my lecture, 
“ A Year in the Klondike.” I was obsessed with a burning idea 
—to get together a company of capable and enterprising min- 
isters who could go with me and follow the thousands of Amer- 
icans rushing away from Dawson down the Yukon in their 
boats to gold fields which were being exploited in the great in- 
terior of Alaska, and also the other thousands who were sailing 
on vessels from Seattle and San Francisco to the Bering Sea 
Coast, and up into the Arctic to the Kobuk region, and even 
to the Kuskoquim and Koyukuk Rivers. Into this vast region 
the people of the States were swarming, and I forecast the con- 
ditions that would prevail among those who still were tender- 
feet in these wild camps where rumour had located gold. 

All that winter I swung around the circuit of the churches 
in the principal states of the East. My family moved to Brook- 
lyn, and my office was in the rooms of the Board. I was av- 
eraging more than a lecture a day all winter, besides answer- 
ing hundreds of letters which were pouring in, asking for lec- 
ture dates. 

In the spring of 799, with joyful anticipations of new and 
greater adventures, I turned again to the Northwest. Dr. M. 
Egbert Koonce, one of four new workers for the Alaskan field, 
started with me; the rest were to follow later. Koonce and I 
outfitted at Seattle, and arrived at Skagway about the first of 

385 


~ 


386 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


May. It took us nearly three weeks to get our outfit over the 
White Pass and down to Lake Bennett. While at Skagway, 
one of the strongest temptations of all my experience assailed 
me. The great Harriman Scientific Expedition arrived on the 
steamer ‘‘ George W. Elder.” Many noted scientists were in the 
party, including Merriam and Dall of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tute, Fuertes of Cornell, John Burroughs and, greatest of all, 
my old friend, John Muir. They were to cruise all along the 
Alaska Coast to the Aleutian Islands, range along both shores 
of Bering Sea and into the Arctic Ocean, spending the summer 
in entrancing exploration. Muir introduced me to Mr. Harri- 
man, who cordially invited me to go with them and share 
Muir’s stateroom. What an enticing proposition! My whole 
soul and body ached to go, but my own, no less important, ex- 
pedition was on foot, and I had to refuse. 

The railroad was completed to the summit, and we could 
convey our goods by this means to that point. Beyond we 
had the usual strenuous, trying time in getting pack-horses and 
wagons to take our goods to Bennett, and we had another de- 
lay getting boats ready to make the river voyage. 

At Bennett I found Rev. Mr. Sinclair, whom I had left at 
Skagway, and Rev. John Pringle, that sturdy pioneer from 
Canada. They were busily working on the new church they 
were erecting—that rustic building with criss-cross slabs for 
the outer covering, the skeleton of which still attracts the at- 
tention of tourists. I worked with them for a week, and I am 
interested in noticing that the shingles I put on are still doing 
their duty on the roof. We secured a couple of boats from a 
Swede, “ Yohn Anderson.” Mr. Hayward, who was one of my 
elders at the organization of the Klondike church, was return- 
ing to Dawson, and took passage in one of our boats. Two 
other ‘ Yohns ”—-Yohn Yonson and Yohn Yacobson—shipped 
as crew to work their passage. Another man, an American, 
went along on the same terms. This man and Anderson 


a 


THE NOME RUSH 387 


formed the crew for our boat, while the other Yohns with Hay- 
ward manned the second boat. I steered my own boat through 
the lakes and a number of the rapids. At Dawson we found 
Dr. Grant, with a large congregation, worshipping in the com- 
pleted log church, and the Good Samaritan Hospital accom- 
plishing well its great humane task. 

Then on to Eagle on the Alaska side, our first objective. ' 
Here we were to make ready for the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. 
J. W. Kirk, whom we were to await at that point. Eagle was 
a booming little town, eager miners were working on American 
Creek and other points. A company of soldiers was at Fort 
Egbert, and the citizens of the town were confident of its large 
growth and were full of enthusiasm. We secured a temporary 
dwelling house for the Kirks and a lot for the future church. 
Plans were all completed for the organization of the new 
presbytery. Mr. Kirk had put the bill through the Church’s 
General Assembly. Norman Harrison was to stop at Skagway 
and take charge of that church. We expected Mr. Corser to 
come on to Eagle, but Dr. Thompson, finding the important 
charge at Wrangell vacant, diverted him from our enterprise 
and left him there. 

When the Kirks arrived we had the momentous first meeting 
of the Presbytery of the Yukon. As I had been appointed 
convenor, I was also the first moderator. Rev. Dr. Marsh and 
Rey. Mr. Spriggs of Point Barrow, with Kirk, Koonce and my- 
self, were enrolled as charter members. This presbytery, which 
has never grown to large proportions, although it covers 
more ground than any other in our body, has done a splendid 
work for the Northwest, and has commanded a respect and in- 
fluence far in excess of its numbers. 

Leaving the Kirks at Eagle, ‘‘ Kooncie ” and I launched our 
boat again, stopped and preached at Circle, fought mosquitoes 
through the sluggish flats, and arrived at Rampart during the 
latter days of July. Here I paused long enough to introduce 


388 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


Koonce and get him started at his work. Then I took passage 
on a boat, crowded with eager gold seekers, down the river 
towards the newly discovered camp at Nome. The boat was 
greatly overcrowded; the miners would not listen to the prot- 
estations of the company and of the captain, but took the boat 
by storm, loading their outfits upon it and preventing the cast- 
ing off of the cable until they were all aboard, and so the boat, 
dangerously overloaded, steamed down the river. The news 
of wonderful beach diggings at a new camp on Seward Penin- 
sula, variously called Nome and Anvil, had somehow reached 
the upper camps. Many from Dawson were on board. The 
third week of August found me at St. Michael eagerly trying 
to get passage to Nome—one hundred and twenty miles dis- 
tant. Men were building small boats, chartering Eskimo 
oomiaks and fishing smacks, and hastening to the new dig- 
gings. 

At St. Michael I found Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who was mak- 
ing his annual tour of the schools on the revenue cutter, 
“Bear.” “Hurry on to Nome! ” he cried. “ You will find 
the greatest task of your life in that new camp.” 

I learned that Rev. L. L. Wirt of the Congregational Church 
had passed me while I was waiting at Eagle, and had arrived 
at Nome a week or ten days previous. He had remained there 
only a few days, and had raised some money, and departed with 
it to get lumber and material for a hospital and church. 
Therefore, the new camp was without a minister of any de- 
nomination. Finding it impossible to get my provisions to 
Nome by rowboats, and learning that a small steamboat be- 
longing to the Alaska Exploration Company was to sail in a 
day or two, I walked a mile and a half through the mossy 
tundra to the point where this boat was tied up, and engaged 
passage. I could not find any means of getting myself and 
my goods to this vessel, until I discovered back of one of the 
stores an abandoned boat with gaping seams. I got a few 


~—— Ie 


THE NOME RUSH 389 


planks, some nails and oakum for calking, and went to work 
labouring at the uninviting craft until three o’clock in the 
morning, when it was completed sufficiently to allow its launch- 
ing. When I went to get my pile of goods to take them aboard, 
I discovered the loss of my most valuable war-bag, which con- 
tained my best clothing, extra boots, trousers and overcoat 
and many other indispensable articles provided for the coming 
winter. Some thief, undoubtedly a white man, had coveted 
and purloined the sack. I improvised a pair of oars from 
boards and, at the very end of my strength, ferried my goods 
in three trips with the little boat, and got them to the steamer 
a short hour before its time of sailing. 

It took us two days and a night, bumping the waves and 
bucking the head wind, to make the short voyage to Nome. 
We anchored a mile from shore in very shallow water. A for- 
est of masts surrounded us, and all sorts of small craft, dories, 
oomiaks, kyaks and ship’s boats were plying between the 
various ships anchored in the offing and Nome. The captain 
had been swearing at the weather the whole voyage, and now 
he said to us, “ I am going to put you ashore. There is a storm 
coming up which will wreck us, if we lie here. No anchor 
would hold us in an hour from now. We will put you ashore 
in the dory, and then we will sail to Sledge Island, twenty 
miles away, to anchor in its lee until the storm abates. I 
can’t land your outfits, for there is not time.” 

There was nothing to be said on the part of the passengers, 
and so with poor grace, each one of us taking on his back a 
little sack with his blankets, we bundled ourselves into the 
dory, were rowed to the beach, and there, trying to get ashore, 
our dory was capsized and we rolled over and over with our 
bundles in the surf, and struggled ashore half-drowned and al- 
together miserable. The camp was dark. Here and there a 
lantern flashed its light along the beach. One or two lamps 
sent feeble rays through the fog from shack or tent. Stumbling 


390 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


over guy ropes, groping my way between tents, piles of goods 
with tarpaulins over them, driftwood:and beach débris, I came 
to a board shanty with a shingle in front marked, “ Lodging.” 
Here I found an old Dawson acquaintance, Mrs. McGrath. 
She greeted me heartily, and helped remove my soggy outer 
garments. When I asked about lodging she said: 

“Sure, ye can. Just spread yer blankets on the flure here, 
and find a place where no one else is layin’.” 

I then took stock of my money, and found the amount only 
five dollars and twenty-five cents. When I inquired the price 
of lodging, she said, ‘ As it’s yerself, I’ll only charge ye a dol- 
lar and feefty cents.” 

That seemed plenty to pay for the privilege of spreading 
one’s own blankets on a rough board floor, but I did not com- 
plain. She took me to a tent where meals were served, and 
another dollar and a half went for pork and beans. In the 
morning still another meal, and then my five and a quarter be- 
gan to “ look like thirty cents,” but still I could not resist the 
great temptation, when I heard a small boy crying, “Seattle 
Post-Intelligencer,’ which was a month old, and I purchased 
it for fifty cents. Only one twenty-five cent piece remained of 
my money, and here I was, a stranger in a strange land, my 
outfit twenty miles away and not to be put ashore for a num- 
ber of days. No tent, no grub, “no nothing! ” It seemed very 
comical to me, and I was laughing when I entered the A B 
Company’s store. A whiskered man who was warming himself 
spoke to me. ‘‘ You seem to be pleased about something,” 
he said. “ Have you struck it rich? ” 

“A rich joke on me,” I answered, and then explained my 
predicament. He jumped at me and began pumping my arm. 
“You are Dr. Young, aren’t you?” he asked. “ Dr. Jackson 
told me you were coming. I have been trying to hold some 
meetings here, for I am an elder from a San Francisco church.” 
His name was Fickus, and he was a splendid specimen of 


THE NOME RUSH 391 


frontier workman. A carpenter, he had been putting up one 
of the large stores. He was now awaiting the sailing of a 
steamboat to return him home. He offered to lend me money 
until I could get started. 

“Let’s wait a while,’ I said. ‘“‘ Something may happen.” 

The anticipated event occurred very promptly. While we 
were talking a man came into the store and with rapid strides 
walked up to me and said, “‘ You are a minister? ” 

Yes,” I replied. 

“Can you marry people? ” 

“ Indeed, I can.” 

“Will you marry me?” — 

“ Certainly, if you have the girl.” 

“That I have,” he said, “the best in the world. She came 
on that steamer last night.” 

So with Mr. Fickus as witness we tramped through the mud 
to a tent, there found a pleasant young lady waiting, and I 
united the happy couple in matrimony. For this service I 
received a fée of twenty dollars. My troubles were over, and 
my food assured for a few more days. 

Let me say right here, that Alaska is the best place in the 
world for you to land in if you are dead-broke. I shall have 
more stories to tell of the open-handed generosity and help- 
fulness of the men of the wilderness, as compared with the 
selfish aloofness of the people who dwell in the lonesomest 
place in all the world—a great city. 

Although events had crowded rapidly in the Klondike stam- 
pede, the hurrying, the cares and the trying experiences did 
not approach those at Nome. This great camp was formed 
suddenly. There was the treeless tundra, moss-covered and 
swampy; before it stretched the shallow Bering Sea, the beach 
sloping gradually, and ships drawing much water could not 
safely approach nearer than within two miles of the shore. 
On account of the charging ice in the fall and spring, the fierce 


392 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


and sudden storms, the constant assaults of the choppy seas, 
it was almost impossible to build breakwaters that would 
stand. The little Snake River had a shallow bar at its mouth, 
and there were no sheltering coves for forty miles up and down 
the Coast. Hither had come some Swedes with prospecting 
tools. 

They had found gold near the mouth of Anvil Creek, and 
this strike had proved so rich that a small stampede had fol- 
lowed, and the creek was shortly staked from source to mouth. 
Before the excitement of this discovery had subsided, miners 
panning the sands of the beach had found astonishing quan- 
tities of fine gold. The news spread rapidly, and caused great 
excitement. The phenomenon of beach diggings which could 
not, according to law, be staked, but were open to any num- 
ber of men who chose to work them, was something new in 
mining. It was a great “ poor man’s proposition.” Some of 
the early prospectors were rocking out from twenty to a hun- 
dred dollars a day in fine gold, right on the open beach. 

As the news spread, men who had failed on the Yukon, 
at Rampart and other points, but principally the poor deluded 
miners who had flocked to the Kobuk, Noatak, and Selawick 
Rivers, which flowed into Kitzebue Sound in the Arctic Ocean, 
returning home, hungry, weather-beaten and heartsick from 
failure, found themselves at Nome. This new booming camp 
opened an opportunity for them to retrieve their lost fortunes. 
So the wild camp began; tents were pitched for ten miles 
east and west of Nome. Hastily, three trading companies, 
the Alaska Commercial, the Northwestern Trading Company, 
and the Alaska Exploration Company, erected buildings on the 
tundra near the mouth of Snake River. Anvil Creek was rap- 
idly worked during the short open season, and its thousands 
of dollars in gold increased the excitement. The great camp 
was too busy to pay any attention to sanitary conditions. 
Men did not take time to put down wells or to secure a supply 





THE NOME RUSH $93 


of pure water. They were drinking the seepage of that impure 
camp. 

Typhoid fever was inevitable; it descended upon the crowd 
in its most virulent form. A company of soldiers who had 
been sent at the beginning of the camp were erecting quarters. 
Men began to sicken and die so fast that attention was finally 
averted from mining to caring for the sick. I found my hands 
full of humane work the first day I landed. Before a week had 
passed it was estimated that one-third of the men at Nome 
had typhoid fever. I found three men desperately sick in one 
tent, two of them delirious and no one to care for them. Men 
died in lonely tents before they were discovered. I had eleven 
funerals in one week, all typhoid cases. Humane work must 
be organized if lives were to be saved and the epidemic 
checked. 

Of course, the religious work could not be neglected, where- 
fore the first Sunday after I landed we had a meeting in the up- 
stairs of Minor Bruce’s warehouse, a room reached with dif- 
ficulty, as we had to stumble over piles of raw skins and furs 
in the storeroom below, climb rickety stairs and accommodate 
ourselves to the dim light of the attic. But we had a great 
meeting, splendid singing by trained voices. An experienced 
musician who had trained large choirs played the organ and 
led the singing. Altogether an inspiring service, with intel- 
ligent and earnest men and women in attendance. For six and 
one-half weeks I was the only minister at Nome to do this 
work. I was made chairman of four relief committees—the 
Odd Fellows’, the Town’s, the Citizens’, and the Mission Com- 
mittees. Day and night I was besieged for help. Men would 
come to my tent at all hours of the night, wake me up and 
take me to see their sick comrades. The steamers which were 
coming and going were taking to their homes, “ outside,”’ hun- 
dreds of men who had been sick and who must leave camp or 
die. Most of these men were without money, and enough was 


394 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


raised by charity to pay their passage to Seattle. I was over- 
whelmed with this tide of distress. The Odd Fellows Lodge, 
of which I was a member, had the first relief committee, and 
did the finest humane work I have ever witnessed anywhere. 
Busy miners working for grub-stakes dropped their own work 
to care for their comrades. I learned to think more of my 
fellow-men, even gamblers and saloon-keepers, than I had ever 
done before, so many were the instances of loving kindness and 
self-sacrifice in that camp. 





XXXVIT 


PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 


work, Mr. Wirt returned from Seattle, bringing with 

him materials for the erection of a hospital at Nome, 
nurses, medicines and an additional physician. With Mr. 
Wirt came a young man of exceptional ability, Mr. Raymond 
Robins. He had been a lawyer, then a Klondike stampeder, 
had been marooned at Holy Cross Mission on the Yukon 
River, and as he has often related in his addresses at Chau- 
tauquas, Christian Endeavour Conventions, Y. M. C. A. rallies 
and other great gatherings of Christian people, “ The Lord 
took hold of him, and by hard knocks and words of salvation 
converted him from a rationalist and agnostic to a humble and 
earnest Christian.” He dedicated himself to Christian work 
and although unlicensed and unordained by any religious body 
had allied himself to the Congregational Church, and was here 
at Nome to assist in whatever way he could. 

While Mr. Wirt felt some resentment at my appearance at 
Nome when he had already ‘“ preémpted ” that claim for the 
Congregational Church, he recognized the necessity of the 
work I had been doing, occupied my pulpit, in a warehouse, 
and began vigorously to erect his hospital and to finish a 
building which had been begun by a Quaker school-teacher as 
a reading room, and which was moved to the lot selected by 
the Congregational Church and finished as a chapel. 

In the meantime I was still more overwhelmed with the mul- 
titude of my duties in humane work. The camp was in a 

395 


\ FTER six weeks of this hard and often distressing 


396 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


panic. The two or three steamers that lay in the offing at 
Nome ready to sail ere the ice should form had all their berths 
engaged by those who were getting away for the winter, and 
temporary bunks were erected in social halls and passageways. 
Suddenly the disease we had all been fighting pounced upon 
me. I resisted the efforts of my friends to put me to bed. “I 
have not time to be sick,” I protested. ‘“‘ These sick men must 
be taken care of and passage secured for those who ought to 
go out to the States.” 

But the typhoid was too strong for me, and the upshot was 
that I had to succumb, and lie down in my robes in the shanty 
of the Perrigos for a long siege of desperate illness. Mrs. Per- 
rigo was my nurse, Dr. Davy my physician, and the whole 
camp my sympathetic and helpful friends. The Odd Fellows 
were the first to come to my aid, then the Christians of the 
camp, and ultimately everybody seemed interested. They kept 
me alive by pure love; they would not let me die. The fever 
generally runs its course in from three to four weeks, but mine 
burned in my veins for seven and one-half weeks. I sank to 
the utmost extreme of emaciation and weakness. Nausea, 
chills that threatened‘to shake me to pieces, delirium, internal 
abscesses and many other weapons were hurled at me by the 
grizzly monster. Billy Murtagh, an Irish-Catholic saloon- 
keeper, was, after Mrs. Perrigo and Mrs. Strong, my chief 
nurse, and it was he who, when Dr. Davy said that I was be- 
yond hope, that nothing would remain on my stomach and that 
the end must come shortly, shouted, with an oath, ‘“‘ He shan’t 
die! We won’t let him! There is a cow here—let’s get some 
fresh milk, and see if he can take that.” 

That wonderful cow! An interprising man had shipped her 
to the camp and was selling large quantities of milk to the 
typhoid patients. She was said to yield twenty gallons a day, 
though she did not look as if she could give one. “ Bunchgrass 
Bill” buckled on his guns and interviewed the owner of the 





PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 397 


cow. Billy got real milk for me, and for three months super- 
intended the milking of that cow, and he brought the milk 
to me, generally himself, in a beer bottle. That life-giving 
beverage gave me a little life; soon my fever broke, and my 
worn-out system rallied, but it was long before I recovered my 
strength. 

I count that deathly illness at Nome as one of the greatest 
of the many blessings ever given me. The chief element in 
the blessing was the insight I received into the real kindness, 
goodness and sterling worth latent in the hearts of even the 
rough element of society. I have seen and experienced so 
much of real kindness and tenderness from the roughest men 
of the North that I have grown to look for and expect real 
good in every one of them. “ Bunchgrass Bill,” the noted “‘ bad 
man,” saved my life and would have gladly laid down his own 
for me. 

Of course, my humane and religious work was turned over 
to Mr. Wirt and Mr. Robins. There were a number of good 
physicians already at Nome, who with those who came with 
Mr. Wirt did efficient service in combating the disease. Early 
in my illness a letter reached me from Mission headquarters in 
New York, by the last boat to arrive at Nome, directing me 
to hand over my work to the Congregationalists, as they were 
on the ground first, and to go to some other point and there 
recommence my labours. While this was strictly in accord 
with the agreement of comity between the two Churches, it 
was a wrong thing to do in the circumstances. The Board had 
no conception of the great stampede which would pour its thou- 
sands on the tundra at Nome the following spring. I was too 
ill, when the letter arrived, to be moved, much less to be sent 
out on the steamboat. I obeyed the letter of the command, 
and asked Mr. Wirt to take over my church work. Shortly be- 
fore Christmas I was moved from the Perrigo house to the 
hospital. Here I remained until I was able to stand up and 


398 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


move about a little, when I returned to my friends, the Per- 
rigos, and afterwards continued my tedious convalescence in a 
cabin of my own which I had rented. 

Hard as was my experience, I am convinced that the suffer- 
ings of my wife and daughters, who had moved to Ithaca, New 
York, were greater. They learned by the last boat which 
sailed from Nome in October that I was desperately ill with 
typhoid fever. It was almost six months before they could 
hear again, and learn whether I was alive or dead. The isola- 
tion of the camp in the far Northwest at that time is beyond 
comprehension by those who have not been placed under such 
circumstances, and even by those who are in the North at the 
present day. Now we have telegraph lines, wireless and radio, 
and can flash news instantly to almost the farthest regions of 
Alaska. Weekly and often semi-weekly mails reach Nome by ~ 
dog team and even by airplane. A railroad is completed to 
within seven or eight hundred miles of Nome. But during the 
winter of 1899-1900 there was not even a trail from Nome to 
Dawson or to the open Coast. 

Just after the New Year, Mr. Wirt with a fine team of 
Malemute dogs driven by an experienced “ musher ” left Nome 
bound for Seattle. They had to break their way through an 
absolutely trackless wilderness for twelve hundred miles be- 
fore they reached the Coast at Katmai on Cook’s Inlet, and 
then make a tedious and perilous journey to Kodiak, and, by 
a little steamboat, to Valdez and out to Seattle, a trip that 
consumed nearly three months. They brought the first news 
from Nome. The tidings reached my family in March. 
Imagine their suffering during those long winter months! They 
were the ones to be pitied, not I. 

It was three months from the time I was taken sick before 
I was able to stand on my feet, and six months before I was 
able to walk a mile. My strength came back very slowly. 
As soon as I was able to preach I assisted Mr. Robins, who was 


‘ 


JNOT SHIN ALNUML 


SINGL 40 ALIO V 


006T NI HNON 





PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 399 


learning to preach and succeeding wonderfully in his new 
vocation. 

In April I made a trip by dog team to the new camp of 
Council, eighty-five miles east of Nome, and there organized a 
mission which was to expand into a church. I returned to 
Nome by the first available boat the second week in June, just 
in time to meet the vanguard of the army of thirty-five thou- 
sand gold seekers who were dumped on that inhospitable 
tundra during the summer. 

Here was confusion worse confounded. Quite a number of 
the Klondikers had made the two-thousand mile trip by dog 
sled from Dawson to Nome in the early spring. They were 
as nothing, however, compared with the multitude who braved 
the perils of the North during that summer. An epidemic of 
small-pox and one of German measles scared the incomers and 
delayed the landing of thousands. The appeals of Mr. Wirt 
and others had brought scores of physicians and trained nurses. 
The liability to illness by typhoid had been exaggerated by 
reports, and six times as many nurses as could find employment 
were landed in that camp of fifteen thousand tents. Out on 
the mossy tundra wearily plodded thousands of tenderfeet 
seeking for new gold diggings. Even those among them who 
had been out to camps in the woods knew nothing about this 
kind of camp. For seventy or eighty miles back towards the 
interior there was no timber at all except a few patches of 
stunted willows and alders. The Christmas tree which the thir- 
teen white children at Nome enjoyed had to be brought by 
dog team a hundred miles. It was decorated with walrus- 
ivory toys and with others made of driftwood and the furs 
found in the country. A genuine team of reindeer, driven by 
orthodox fat Santa Claus with real icicles on his whiskers, had 
brought a touch of genuine Christmas colour and joy into the 
bleak Arctic region. 

Now, in the summer stampede, the campers missed the trees 


400 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


and the big flashing log fires. The mosquitoes were a veritable 
Egyptian plague; many of them were so small that they could 
not be seen without the closest inspection, but, as the miners 
were wont to say, “‘ The smaller the hotter.” 

When I returned to Nome from Council I was compelled to 
go to the hospital for two weeks for an operation, and, indeed, 
all that summer I was far from being well. But the work 
must be done, and I must do it. Many hundreds of Christians 
were there who must be provided with religious services. Mr. 
Robins in his little chapel was overcrowded. As soon as I was 
able I bought a large tent, which had been brought to serve as 
a saloon or lodging house. But the owner had the gold fever 
and wished to go prospecting, so he sold me the tent. I pur- 
chased lumber enough for the floor, wainscoting and benches, 
secured a lot at boom prices, and soon had my church in order. | 
Too many pianos were brought to Nome for the demand, and I 
rented one of the surplus. Miss Steiner, of the noted musical 
family, who was a most accomplished pianist and composer of 
operettas, played for me that summer. Margaret McKenzie, 
a soprano, afterwards an opera star; Zimmerman, who had 
sung in grand opera in Europe; and a bass and alto of equal 
talent formed one of the finest quartets I have ever heard. An 
eager congregation rattled over the boards of the hastily laid 
sidewalk and plodded through the mud to fill my church tent. 

Mr. Kirk came down on a river steamboat from Eagle in 
July, and Mr. Koonce from Rampart, and another Presbyterian 
minister who had come as a pastor—all helped in my services 
and started meetings in different parts of this great camp. 
After a summer of hard but inspiring work I was able to or- 
ganize a church with thirty-two charter members, representing 
a number of different denominations. The Congregational 
church had been organized, and also was filled, that summer. 

Space will not permit me to detail a full account of the Nome 
stampede. The conditions were very different from those at 





PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 401 


Dawson. So many gold-bearing creeks were discovered in the 
older camps that the forty thousand stampeders could be kept 
interested and racing about the country, many of them to find 
pay-streaks. But the Nome diggings were confined to the 
beach and to four or five small creeks—Anvil Creek, near 
Nome; Sinuk, twenty miles northwest; Bluff or Topkok, fifty 
miles east; Ophir, eighty-five miles inland; Teller, ninety miles 
northwest. These yielded considerable gold, but with the ex- 
ception of Ophir the diggings were soon exhausted. ‘The fine 
gold found on the beach yielded rich returns only in small 
spots. The famous ‘‘ Third Beach Pay Streak ” had not yet 
been discovered on the tundra. Not one in ten of the thou- 
sands who had sailed to Nome could make even a scanty living. 

The exodus by the outbound boats in the fall crowded them 
almost as full as the incoming steamers in the spring. Only 
five or six thousand remained at Nome the winter of 1900-01. 

During the summer my duties were many and varied. Be- 
sides preaching and organizing the church there was still much 
welfare work to be done. With the putting down of wells and 
the establishment of a reasonably good water system, the 
typhoid epidemic had subsided. The small-pox scare proved 
to be mostly imaginary, and while the German measles were 
often fatal to the Eskimos of Seward Peninsula, they were not 
so to the whites. 

Many families from the States had come to Nome, and com- 
fortable houses were being built. Saloons and gambling houses 
ran wide open for a while; considerable violence and lawless- 
ness occurred. We had seven funerals in ten days, all violent 
deaths—four murders and three suicides. But considering the 
conditions, there was remarkably little disturbance. The vast 
majority of that crowd were law-abiding, self-respecting citi- 
zens, who had gone there to better their conditions by lawful 
means. The saloons, of course, reaped rich harvest, “ working 
the miners.” 


402 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


I arrived at my home in Ithaca, New York, in the fall of 
1900. I was physically in very bad shape. For two months or 
more a surgeon was cutting at me, and all the following winter 
I was a sick man. I was burning with the desire to find men 
for the many new camps which had been started in Alaska. 
Kirk was at Eagle and Koonce at Rampart. They both built 
new log churches and were ministering successfully to them. 
Koonce had gone to Council for a while, wintered at St. 
Michael, having a company of soldiers for his congregation, 
and returned to Rampart, where his parish extended to the 
many creeks that were being exploited and prospected. He 
was an ideal frontiersman, could outwalk most of the prospect- 
ors, could go long distances on his snowshoes, sleep comfort- 
ably in his sleeping bag on the snow, and retain, with all his 
“hardships,” a cheerful spirit and unfailing willingness to 
help. The most popular woman in Alaska for some time was 
Mrs. Kirk, at Eagle; refined, gentle, sweet-natured. She made 
a home for the lonely tenderfeet from Eastern cities who found 
their way to this hospitable log manse. She was a most ac- 
complished musician, and men walked miles and miles to listen 
to her play the piano. Homesick city boys rolled on her rug 
and kissed it with tear-filled eyes as they thought of the lux- 
urious homes they had left. 

But there were other busy camps besides Eagle and Rampart 
which needed the same kind of ministration. I had left the 
Nome church in charge of Rev. Luther M. Scroggs, who was to 
care for it during the winter and until I could find a perma- 
nent pastor. Teller was a booming camp of great promise, and 
Council was another. There were other promising camps up 
the Koyukuk in the Kuskoquim country, where new strikes 
were frequently reported. 

When I was able to resume my speaking I was in constant 
demand by the churches in the East. The financial condition 
of the Board was not improving, and the new missionaries must 


PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 403 


be supported by special gifts. Speaking campaigns in all the 
great cities of the East occupied Sundays and week days until 
the spring. I was the first commissioner from our new Presby- 
tery of Yukon to the General Assembly, which met in Phila- 
delphia in May, 1901. My fellow-commissioner was Peter 
Koonooya, an Eskimo elder from Ootkeavik church at Point 
Barrow. Peter was a very bright Eskimo. He could speak 
tolerable English, could read and write, and was a talented 
etcher and carver in ivory. While undoubtedly the discussions 
on the “ revision question ” were Greek to him, I am confident 
that his vote was always right—for he watched me closely, 
and voted as I did on all questions. 

In Philadelphia an incident occurred which deserves men- 
tion: Six or seven of us from different home mission fields were 
on the platform at an evening Home Mission rally in the great 
hall. Each of us had ten minutes in which to exploit his field. 
My warm friend, Dr. W. S. Holt, synodical missionary of 
Oregon, preceded me on the platform. Two rich elders, John 
H. Converse, who was vice-moderator of the Assembly, and 
John Wanamaker, were on the platform with us. Holt was 
making a special appeal for a gift of five hundred dollars to 
support one of his missionaries. At the close of the meeting 
Mr. Wanamaker handed him a check for the amount. I 
pleaded for a man to go to the new camp of Teller, Alaska. No 
immediate response was made, and Holt exulted over me. In 
the course of my address I mentioned, as illustrating the rise 
of our camps, how Skagway had arisen in one year from a con- 
fused camp in the woods, without houses or streets, to a thriv- 
ing city of six thousand inhabitants, with electric lights, tele- 
phones and all other accompaniments of civilization; and I 
mentioned also the new railroad and the fact that the running 
stock was furnished by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, “ of 
which our esteemed vice-moderator, John H. Converse, is 
president.” 


404 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


The next evening there was a great reception in the Academy 
of Fine Arts. Mr. and Mrs. Converse were among the hosts 
who were shaking hands with the long line of commissioners. 
As Mrs. Young and I came up to him he called out joyfully, 
“ Hello, Alaska! How much are you going to charge me for 
advertising my locomotives? ” 

Quickly I answered, “‘ If you ba veh to support our mis- 
sionary for Teller, Ill call it square.” 

“T’ll do it,” he said. And thus we received from this gen- 
erous man fifteen hundred dollars a year as long as the mission 
at Teller endured. 

Back to Skagway, the spring of 1901, and down the Yukon 
to Dawson in company with Dr. Marsh and his family, who 
were returning to the Arctic Mission, and with them Elder 
Koonooya and his wife, Mungooya. At Eagle we held a meet- 
ing of the presbytery. While the Marshes were waiting there 
for a steamer, Peter and I got in a small boat, with my outfit, 
and floated with the current to Rampart, six hundred miles. 
The weather was hot, and the mosquitoes were a frightful 
plague. So plentiful were they that Koonooya’s black coat ap- 
peared gray. We wore helmets and gauntleted buckskin gloves, 
otherwise we could not have withstood the plague. Continually 
I had to be brushing the mosquitoes off the glass of my helmet 
in order to see sufficiently to steer my boat. For hours, when 
in the thickest of them, we would go thirsty—not daring to 
open our helmets sufficiently to take a drink of water. At 
night we would camp out on some sandy island in midstream. 
I had a mosquito-proof tent with canvas floor and flaps fur- 
nished with double mosquito bar, which we could secure with 
a spring clothespin. We would set up our stoves, make all 
snug, and then with our candles would touch the mosquitoes 
which had smuggled themselves in and were on the walls wait- 
ing to torment us. 

When we reached Rampart I found that Koonce was down 





PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 405 


on the Coast and that his church was temporarily closed. We 
had services there, and when the steamer came with the 
Marshes we got on board and went to Nome. Here we found 
Koonce. Our church-tent was out of repair, and Christians 
of all the different denominations were worshipping in the 
Congregationalists’ newly erected church. 

I had been appointed General Missionary for Alaska, and my 
duties were to visit all the points I could cover, and report on 
their condition to the Board. In September, in company with 
Dr. Jackson, who was returning from his school trip to the 
Northwest, I took the steamer ‘“ Roanoke” at Nome to Un- 
alaska in the Aleutians. There we learned that President 
McKinley had been assassinated in Buffalo. The doctor and I 
took passage from Unalaska on the little steamer, “‘ Bertha,” 
along the Coast past Kodiak to Valdez, which was then a new 
and booming town. When we arrived we saw the flag at half- 
mast—the President was dead. Dr. Jackson went on to Sitka 
on the “ Bertha” while I remained to take another boat, as 
it was in my line of duty to make a tour of the Southeastern 
Alaska missions. 

Arriving at Juneau I induced Rev. James H. Condit and 
Rev. Mr. Jones to go with me in a boat down to Killisnoo and 
Angoon and then up to Hoonah. There was no minister at 
Angoon, and the village was still about the toughest in the 
Archipelago. Rev. Mr. Carl was at work in Hoonah, while 
Mr. Jones was pastor of the native church at Juneau and Mr. 
Condit of the white church. 

After leaving Hoonah I visited our missions at Kake and 
Wrangell; then proceeded by the large steamer to Ketchikan, 
by mail launch over to Cholmondeley (‘‘ Chumley ”), a portage 
of three miles, and on to the copper-mining town of Sulzer. 
Thence I traveled to Klawack, where Rev. David Waggoner 
and his bride had lately arrived and commenced their work; 
thence back to Wrangell, down to Seattle and then East to 


406 . HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


New York, where I made my reports and resumed my work 
among the churches. 

Still boosting Alaska and its missions, I spent the rest of that 
winter speaking to churches, and attended the meeting of the 
General Assembly in Fifth Avenue Church, New York, the 
spring of 1902. Mr. Koonce was our commissioner from the 
Presbytery of the Yukon, and to reach the Assembly he had 
been compelled to start with his dogs in February. He had 
traveled twelve hundred miles with his dog team via Circle, 
Eagle, and Forty Mile to Valdez. Peter Koonooya had carved 
an ivory gavel from a walrus tusk which I procured at St. 
Michael and I presented this gavel to Dr. Henry Van Dyke, 
who was chosen moderator. In my speech of presentation I 
exploited Koonce, telling of his trip with his dog team on his 
way to the General Assembly. The other commissioners 
crowded around Koonce in the anteroom, wishing to shake the 
hand of the man who had done this wonderful thing. He was 
the hero of the Assembly. 

I returned to Alaska in the spring of 1902, this time taking 
my family with me. My oldest daughter had married, and 
there was but my wife and our daughter Alaska. We went by 
the Canadian Pacific, the grandest scenic route of all, and took 
our household goods and my library to Skagway, which was 
my headquarters for a year. I cared for the church in the ab- 
sence of a minister, and traveled around the Archipelago as 
far west as Valdez in my duties as superintendent. One of my 
tasks was to defend our mission property from jumpers and 
to secure patents for the lands that had been granted us by the 
government. 

I established the mission at Klukwan, met with the Presby- 
tery of Alaska at Wrangell, presided at the organization of the 
church at Kasaan, and had a very busy year in that region vis- 
iting again our old missions. It was a wonderful experience 
and pleasure to me to see the rise of these savages from ig- 


SDOd HO WVHL SIH CNV NOS&UVd DNIHSOW HHL 








PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 407 


norant and squalid heathenism into Christian citizenship. In 
the spring the wanderlust was in my veins again. Leaving my 
wife at Skagway, I sailed with my daughter Alaska down the 
Yukon, visited my old church at Dawson, stopped a while at 
Eagle, where Mr. and Mrs. Kirk had been succeeded by Mr. 
Ensign and his wife, then down to Rampart for a visit with the 
Koonces. Dr. Koonce had brought a wife from Pennsylvania 
on his return from the Assembly. 

Koonce had made a trip the previous fall to the new excite- 
ment at Fairbanks on the Tanana, and had secured a lot at 
Chena, a town ten miles down the river from Fairbanks. He 
made his report, and I instructed Mr. Ensign to go over by 
dog team from Eagle and look after that work. Now I was 
bound towards Fairbanks, but when I reached Rampart all the 
reports from the new camp were most discouraging. Pros- 
pectors and miners were returning by hundreds, asserting that 
the pay claims were few, poor and hard to work, and the camp 
was “a frost.” 

As our missions at Teller and Council demanded attention, 
and an opportunity seemed to open to make a visit to Point 
Barrow, my daughter and I took steamer again to St. Michael 
and on to Nome, where I supplied the Congregational church a 
few Sabbaths and went on board the revenue cutter “ Bear,” 
hoping to get a trip to the extreme northern point of the con- 
tinent. But the ice pack closed in that year, and the “ Bear ” 
could not make its way northward. My daughter and I took 
a trip in the little trading boat, ‘‘ The Sadie,” to Teller, York, 
Cape Prince of Wales, and up into the Arctic Ocean and 
Kotzebue Sound, to Deering and Kiwalik, which were mining ‘ 
and trading camps; and on to the Quaker Mission at Cape 
Blossom. Then back to our mission at Teller, where I had 
stationed a Presbyterian, Mr. Meacham. He had served that 
mission until the arrival the previous season of Rev. Herman 
Hosack, the man supported by John H. Converse. Mr. Hosack 


408 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


had made a trip by reindeer team one hundred miles from 
Teller to Council, where he had partially erected a log church. 
After a duck and goose hunt in the lakes back of Teller, we 
sailed to Nome and thence to Golofnin Bay, up the Fish River 
to the strange, wild mining camp of Council. 

A most interesting winter followed. I finished the neat log 
church which Mr. Hosack had commenced. A village of Es- 
kimos being on the flat by the river, I held three services every 
Sunday, one for the whites in the evening and two for the 
Eskimos. We had a flourishing Sunday School, these natives 
being above all things religious. The miners were not generally 
so devout, but we had good meetings all winter, and in the 
spring organized a white church with a dozen charter mem- 
bers. Dan Sutherland, who has since served four terms as 
Alaska delegate to Congress, presented my daughter with a 
beautiful Siberian dog, and the wife of a meat man gave her a 
wonderful cat, which was half wildcat, and promptly thrashed 
all the Malemute and Husky dogs in the place. 

We returned in May by sled to Nome, ready for the next 
great adventure. My daughter Alaska found hers to be the 
venture of marriage, and was united the first day of June, 
1904, in the Congregational church of Nome, to Captain 
Kleinschmidt, a miner and boatman of Teller. So she re- 
mained on Seward Peninsula, while I was getting ready for 
my new exploit. 


XXXVITI 


THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE 


the summer of 1904. Real estate was high, the price 
of lots in the heart of the town being prohibitive. 
There was plenty of work to do, but the conditions were less 
favourable. Rev. Howard Frank, just graduated from Prince- 
ton Seminary, with his bride had floated in an open boat down 
the Yukon to Tanana, at the mouth of the river of the same 
name. I met them there when I came up the Yukon in a 
boat. They established themselves at Chena. Two weeks 
later I went on to the larger town of Fairbanks, and found a 
city mostly of log houses, with a few frame buildings and 
plenty of tents and some ten thousand people, with another 
ten thousand working or prospecting on the creeks near by. 
The Fairbanks stampede differed from the other two in 
having a much larger proportion of experienced miners; men 
who had been in the Klondike stampede six or seven years 
before and in the Nome rush, and had learned something of 
_ the trade of gold mining. I found here hundreds of old friends 
and met with sympathy and codperation from the beginning. 
Bishop Rowe and Archdeacon Stuck of the Episcopal Church 
had just arrived, and were preparing to build a church and 
hospital. Two large sawmills were at work turning out lum- 
ber, and the sound of hammer and saw was heard on all 
sides. Judge Wickersham, who was destined to be the most 
influential man of all who worked to shape legislation and make 
laws for Alaska, was holding court. He helped me obtain the 
log courthouse for Sunday services. I lost no time in securing 
a site for church and manse. 


r SHE camp at Fairbanks was a year old when I arrived, 


409 


410 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


I established meeting places in roadhouses on the creeks, 
and continued holding services there as long as I remained at 
Fairbanks. From the first I was greatly encouraged. There 
were in proportion more women in Fairbanks than at either of 
the other stampedes, and many of these women were Chris- 
tians and used to church work. My wife came from Skagway, 
and we lived in the little shack for two years. When my build- 
ing was up I organized a church of some thirty members rep- 
resenting seven or eight different denominations. 

The work in this great camp of Fairbanks was enchanting; 
something interesting occurred every day. This camp, unlike 
the others, during the time I was there was free from any 
grave epidemic. The water supply was abundant and sweet, 
the sanitation of the camp good from the first, and the people 
who flocked there had learned how to dive in that country, 
and not die. The climate was on an average at least fifteen 
degrees warmer than that of Dawson, although each winter 
of the three I spent on the Tanana the temperature reached 
sixty degrees below zero, and once the government thermometer 
registered seventy-two below. 

But I am going to make emphatically an assertion, in spite 
of the low temperature, that may seem very strange to my 
readers: The Fairbanks climate is the most healthful and com- 
fortable I have ever experienced. When it is severely cold the 
air is still and is drier than at Dawson. It is a reliable cli- 
mate;.it is consistently cold in the winter and almost invariably 
warm in the summer. I have experienced 96 degrees of heat 
in the shade there, but the summer is dry, and the nights are 
cool, and one can always enjoy a good night’s sleep, provided 
he can bar out the mosquitoes. The children never lose a day 
from school, winter or summer, on account of the weather. 
Our houses are built wisely and snugly. We dress according 
to the demands of the climate, and epidemics, such as the 
whooping cough, measles, mumps and other diseases which 





THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE 411 


prey on little folks, seem to shun that climate. Deadly mi- 
crobes do not find sixty below healthy for their constitutions, 
and are not found there. But I have learned more and more 
the truth of Emerson’s two proverbs: ‘‘ We find in any place 
just what we bring into it.” And, “‘ Every man makes his own 
weather.” And I say, “‘ Every climate and country is as we 
make it and as we take it.” 

The first winter the only food articles which were scarce 
were fresh meats; few cattle were brought in and extensive 
hunting expeditions had not been organized. The staple ar- 
ticle was rabbit. I had forty or fifty good-sized carcasses hung 
up in my shed. They were so plentiful that early one morn- 
ing, in a couple of hours’ shooting, two of us got thirty-two of 
the fine animals. When the snow came and sledding was 
good, hunters brought from the surrounding country moose in 
plenty. A great caribou herd, estimated at twenty-five thou- 
sand in number, raided the country, and carcasses of fine meat 
were everywhere. The best of all meats, the mountain sheep, 
which were found in the foot hills of Mount McKinley, were 
brought in later. Besides these we had bears from everywhere. 

The second year of the camp, many women from all parts 
of the world, including Australia, South Africa, the Scan- 
dinavian countries and other lands, came to Fairbanks to be 
united to their promised sweethearts. Indeed, my principal 
dependence for a livelihood was upon wedding fees. They 
were always generous and hearty. I was putting all the money 
I could get hold of into the church; prices were high, and my 
salary small, so the fees were very acceptable. In addition, I 
wrote the editorials of the first newspaper established there, 
The Times, of which Mr. Robert McChesney, now my son-in- 
law, was editor. Together we managed the Russo-Japanese 
war—and brought it to a successful conclusion! 

My largest wedding fee came in this way: One very cold 
morning there drove up to our door a large dog team of splen- 


412 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


did Malemutes. A man of about fifty, with icicles on his 
whiskers, helped a lady from the sled, and they came in. 
When we had thawed them out they announced that they had 
driven from the Koyukuk, six hundred miles, to be married. 
The lady had been a member of my congregation at Dawson; 
her husband had died in the Koyukuk, and so had the wife 
of this man who now accompanied her.. When the widow and 
widower concluded to join their fortunes together the lady 
said, “If you wish to marry me, you will have to take me to 
Dr. Young at Fairbanks. I will not be married by a magis- 
trate.” The task was a light one for this man of the wilder- 
ness—they struck the trail and here they were. After I had 
performed the ceremony the happy groom began to fumble 
in the pocket of his mackinaw, but not until his wife helped 
him was he able to extract his big fat buckskin poke of gold 
dust. 

“T have no money, parson,” he said, “ but I have a lump 
here that I thought I would give you.” 

He fished down in the gold and brought out a chunk about 
the size of my thumb. When my wife weighed it at the bank, 
for she always claimed the wedding fees, we found it was 
worth ninety-six dollars! 

In the fall of 1905, Dr. Leonard, the secretary of the Mis- 
sion Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Dr. Par- 
sons, a Methodist minister, came to Fairbanks. I received 
them cordially, but when they asked about the propriety of 
establishing a Methodist Church in Fairbanks, I said, ‘ You 
will, of course, do as you please; but my policy has always 
been to stay out of a declining camp when a pastor of another 
evangelical denomination was at work. This town is going 
down and will continue to do so, like all placer camps, for 
years, and there is no room for effective work of the two de- 
nominations. Instead of one strong self-supporting church, 
you would make two struggling, weak ones.” 


THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE 413 


The good secretary agreed with me, but said that he was 
under orders of his Board to establish a church at Fairbanks, 
and it was done. My Methodist members, as many of them 
as would go, went out of our organization and joined the 
Methodist church. A number of Methodist ministers came in 
succession to Fairbanks; but the work grew so slowly that now 
for many years it has been abandoned, and the Methodist 
members who remained came back to the Presbyterian church. 
This is just a sample of the mistakes of over-churching I have 
mentioned. 

In the spring of 1906 I was compelled to return to Seward 
Peninsula to look after the interest of our missions there, leav- 
ing Fairbanks in charge of Mr. Frank, whose church at Chena 
had declined with that town, and who agreed to care for the 
Fairbanks church until a pastor could be secured. A catas- 
trophe occurred that summer, from the effects of which I have 
never fully recovered. I had boxed up a library of fifteen hun- 
dred volumes, with my papers, diaries, etc., leaving them to be 
shipped to the Coast. My library was the finest and largest, I 
think, in the North. Among other documents were letters 
from my old friend, John Muir, and from many other com- 
panions, letters for which I would not have taken any sum of 
money; books autographed by the authors, and others from 
valued friends; an elegantly bound set of the life and letters of 
William H. Seward, three volumes, given me by his son, 
William H. Seward, Jr., and other keepsakes of equal value, 
with memoranda which I was saving for future use. They were 
shipped on the river steamer, “‘ Leah,” which was wrecked, and 
my library was reduced to muddy pulp. Others who had lost 
goods by the vessel, and myself, sued the company for damages. 
We proved that the boat was a mile out of its course and that 
the pilot was drunk, but the judge at Seattle (who was after- 
wards impeached and dismissed for venality) decided that it 
was an “act of God,” and we got nothing for our loss. 


414 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


We spent the winter at Teller, which from being a booming 
town had declined to a small village where a few gold miners, 
traders and hotel men occupied about one-tenth of the houses 
that had been erected in booming times. My work was 
principally with the Eskimos, although I had a small white 
congregation. We lived in this terribly stormy place and were 
comfortable, although there were days when we could not stir 
out of the house without danger. Men had been lost in the 
driving snow trying to cross a street and had wandered out to 
their death. 

Sometimes the streets of Nome were piled so full of the 
drifted snow that the citizens could get into the street only by 
climbing out of the second-story windows, and often they had 
to use steep ladders up from them to the surface of the snow. 
But such incidents never seemed dreadful to us, did not affect | 
our comfort, and were only occasions of jokes and laughter. 

During the winter I had to make several trips by dog team 
to Nome, ninety miles away. On two of those trips, for twenty 
miles or more, I could not see the lead dog of my team for the 
drifting snow, but had to let him pick his own way, which he 
did with unerring instinct. The roadhouses at which we 
stopped were all buried deep, and we were lucky if we were 
able to locate them by means of their stovepipes. 

I had to return to Fairbanks in the spring of 1907. I sup- 
posed that my stay there would be only temporary, as I had 
been appealing for a pastor for that church; therefore I sent 
Mrs. Young on up the Yukon and out to Skagway, while I 
went up the Tanana. Mr. Frank had left Alaska before my 
return. I erected a commodious manse at Fairbanks, to have 
it ready for the new pastor when he should arrive. But the 
promised missionary was taken sick, and I was compelled to 
remain there another winter. I had planned to go on mule- 
back across Broad Pass and down the Susitna Valley to Seward, 
four hundred and fifty miles distant, as I was anxious to reach 


THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE 415 


Cordova, then beginning its boom. But this pleasure trip was 
denied me. I built the manse, and lived in it that winter. 
Although Fairbanks was declining in population, enough were 
there to keep me busy and afford a pleasurable winter of 
work. 

With the summer of 1908, came Rev. James H. Condit and 
family. Mr. Condit had ministered to Juneau Church for 
some years, and had now come from Sioux City, Iowa. He 
remained as the efficient pastor of Fairbanks for five years. 
In 1908 I sailed again down the Yukon to Nome and out to 
Seattle, then up the Coast to the new booming town of Cordova. 

The copper of Alaska, which had been secondary to gold in 
the interest excited, had now come to the front. What were 
boasted to be the largest copper mines in the world were dis- 
covered at the base of Mount Wrangell and up the eastern 
tributary of the Copper River, a wild, broken region of glaciers 
and icy mountains. There the Morgan-Guggenheim syndicate 
had obtained large holdings; they also got their grip on two 
great coal fields, the Katalla or Bering Lake field in the ex- 
treme southeastern part of the main body of Alaska, and the 
Matanuska field at the head of Cooks Inlet on the central 
southern coast. 

During President McKinley’s administration a skeleton, 
partly truth and partly error, had been unearthed, and it was 
charged that the coal claims and copper claims exploited by 
the great syndicate were fraudulent, and that the big company 
was plotting to corral the vast wealth of Alaska. Without 
going into the merits of this question at all, the public is 
acquainted with the fact that Ballinger, the secretary of the 
interior, lost his office and when Roosevelt succeeded McKinley 
he withdrew the coal fields from further location, threw the 
claims already staked into the courts and curbed the power of 
the syndicate. 

Katalla had been the center of the coal and copper excite- 


416 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


ment, and the syndicate had commenced a railroad from that 
town up the Copper River. This was abandoned, and the town 
of Cordova was located west of the Copper River Delta. This 
new town was attracting great attention and was a stirring 
little city, with town lots selling at sky-high prices, the Copper 
Valley railroad being pushed with energy towards the copper 
mines; a crazy excitement was apparent. I found the climate 
somewhat like that of Southeastern Alaska, mild and very wet. 
The snowfall at times was very heavy, but the temperature 
seldom reached so low as zero. I commenced my meetings in 
a rude hall under a drug store and secured a little cabin on a 
hill for myself and wife, who joined me here during the winter. 

Two years of hard pioneer work followed, a work of building 
and organizing. During the summer of 1909-10 I made fre- 
quent trips to Katalla, Latouche and Valdez on the Coast and 
up the railroad line to the camps of the workmen as far as 
Chitina, the beginning of the government road at Fairbanks 
and Kennicott, where the big copper mine was located. 

In 1909 came the notable man from New York City, George 
W. Perkins of the J. P. Morgan Company. He chartered the 
steamer ‘“‘ Spokane,” fitted her up as a great yacht and brought 
his family and other friends on a tour of the new railroad. 
He gave us six hundred dollars for our church, and his gift, 
with other donations made by employees of that company, 
enabled us speedily to build a neat edifice for the church which 
was organized that winter with about forty members. For 
many the chief attraction of Cordova was that railroad and 
the glaciers which bordered it, and the thundering ice masses 
crashing into Copper River. I went through the exciting 
times described by Rex Beach in his Jron Trail, and spent 
many delightful hours with Professor Martin of the University 
of Wisconsin, who was studying the movements of Childs 
Glacier. It was coming forward and threatening to sweep 
away the two-million-dollar iron bridge which spanned the 


THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE 417 


Copper River. Many hours I spent in front of that glacier, 
and was often chased up the bank and even up into the trees, 
when great tidal waves caused by the ice masses falling into 
the river swept across the Copper and far up the bank. 

Late in the fall of 1910, at the call of the Board, I left 
Cordova to take up office work in our building at New York, 
and to form further plans for the evangelization of the great 
interior and the West Coast. Dr. Koonce was brought back to 
Alaska and installed as pastor of the Cordova church, while I 
took up the lonesome life of a denizen of the city, to “ prowl 
in the canyons of dismal unrest.” 


XXXIX 
FRIENDLY ALASKA AND LONELY NEW YORK 


the camps of the Northwest without coming East. I 
found everything new and strange. The horse and 
carriage had resigned in favour of the automobile. The great 
surge of modern life and invention had swept away old cus- 
toms and new things had come with a rush. From the first, 
the city oppressed and dismayed me. Soon after taking up 
my task at 156 Fifth Avenue, I was called upon to address 
the New York ministers’ meeting in the Assembly Room of the 
Presbyterian Board. Dr. Lyman Abbott, who was to have 
addressed the meeting on “ Recollections of Henry Ward 
Beecher,” yielded his place to me, and, perhaps because of 
the attraction of his great name, the room was full of the bright 
men of New York, Brooklyn and vicinity. I was introduced 
by old Dr. Patterson, who had been a friend of my father’s, 
and was one of the revered veterans of the Church. He 
spoke at great length while addressing me, and pursued a line 
I have always found distasteful and embarrassing: “ Our be- 
loved brother, Dr. Young, from the great icy wilderness of 
the North—‘ Seward’s Folly.’”” Then he went on to speak of 
the terrible hardships I had encountered and the dangers I 
met with, making me a very much embarrassed quasi hero, 
ashamed of undeserved praise. When he got through, and 
had released me from my suffering, I commenced my address 
by thanking the good doctor for his kind words, but entering 
a complete disclaimer to all that he had said about Alaska and 
my life in it. 
“There may be hardships in that great Territory of the 
418 


| \OR eight continuous years I had been sojourning up in 


FRIENDLY ALASKA AND LONELY NEW YORK 419 


Northwest,” I said, “ but I have never found many. Life there 
is the freest, most pleasurable and most comfortable to be 
found anywhere. I live there because I like to do so, and 
work there because it is to me the most satisfactory work of 
all. As to the dangers of that life, I consider it far more dan- 
gerous and risky to cross Broadway with its thousands of 
deadly machines dashing here and there than to go with my 
dog team from one end of Alaska to the other.” 

The brethren laughed, and thought I was simply joking, but 
the point of the story is this: My dear old friend who intro- 
duced me, and another doctor of divinity, while going home 
from that meeting were both knocked down by the same auto- 
mobile on Fifth Avenue and were nearly killed. 

While on the subject of the relative merits of Alaska and 
New York City as places of residence, permit a story or two. 
One very hot day in my office when the sun’s heat reflected 
from skyscrapers smote you in the face like a furnace blast 
and made our comfort day or night impossible, there came 
from the press Robert W. Service’s latest volume of Northern 
poems, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone. I devoured it as eagerly 
as a child gulps ice-cream on a sultry day. It actually cooled 
me off to read those splendid appreciative lines of ‘“ our Kip- 
ling of the North.” When I got to the poem entitled, “I’m 
Scared of It All,” I could hardly contain myself. I rushed 
into the office where my chief, Dr. Charles L. Thompson, was 
sweltering at his desk, and cried out: “ Here is a man who 
has expressed to the life what I have been feeling all these 
years in New York, but had not the brains to put in words.” 
I read: 


“Tm scared of it all; God’s truth so I am! 
It’s too big and brutal for me. 
My nerve’s on the raw and I don’t give a damn 
For all the hurrah that I see. 


420 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


I’m pinned between subway and overhead train 
Where automobiles swoop down. 

I’ve got to get back to the timber again; 
I’m scared of the terrible town.” 


I afterwards selected a lot of Alaska pictures and sent a 
photographer into “ the canyons of dismal unrest ” in the city 
of New York, and made of this verse an illustrated poem 
in one of my lectures on Alaska. It took me two years to 
find the appropriate pictures, but it seemed to take mightily 
in the churches and lecture halls. 

When the spring of 1911 began to open, I was making a 
strenuous effort to find a man to go to the interior of Alaska 
again. Two new camps had opened, Ruby on the Yukon and 
Iditarod far to the south on a branch of the Innoko River. 
These camps were booming and were without religious care. 
Advertisements, personal trips to the seminaries and vigorous 
correspondence failed to find a man to send to these needy 
points. At last it became evident that if they were to be 
manned I myself would have to return to the interior. I was 
homesick, though having lived in New York not six months, 
so I struck the trail again, leaving my wife with our daughters 
in New York. The spell of service was upon me, and the 
trip to Skagway, and down the Yukon by steamer to Ruby, 
was an inspiration. This camp was by no means comparable 
to the camps of the three great stampedes, but there were 
more than a thousand people there, with prospects enough to 
fill the miners with enthusiasm. 

But Iditarod was the larger camp, and its call more in- 
sistent, so | took steamer again down the Yukon, two hundred 
miles to Holy Cross, and thence by small steamer up the 
crooked, sluggish Innoko, and the more crooked and sluggish 
little Iditarod, to this far-away camp. I found some five 
thousand eager miners at Iditarod and its twin sister, Flat 
City, eight miles distant. A creek called Flat Creek yielding 


FRIENDLY ALASKA AND LONELY NEW YORK 421 


large returns had been struck a year previous, and the miners 
had hopes of a great camp. On the Innoko, at a town called 
Ophir, was another gold strike, and across the low mountains 
on the great river Kuskoquim, still others. 

Two very busy summers and a busy winter ensued. A larger 
proportion of Scandinavians, Swedes, Norwegians and Danes, 
were here than in the other camps. Fine people these, re- 
ligious and Protestant, belonging to the Lutheran or Swedish 
Evangelical Churches. The winter was very cold and stormy. 
I had a dog team, given me by a woman of not unspotted 
reputation for whom I had performed the wedding ceremony 
at Fairbanks, but who had left that husband and what Christ 
said to the woman of Samaria was true of her: “ He whom 
thou hast now is not thy husband.” But she had a dog team, 
five puppies of one litter, which she had brought up from 
“ puppyhood,” trained to be a fine team and could no longer 
take care of, so she decided to give them to me, saying, “ As 
I am not good myself, I wish my dogs to do some good.” 

With these dogs I made many trips to the surrounding 
camps during the winter, ministering to the sick miners and 
to the camps on the creeks wherever I could find an audience. 
These two isolated towns, cut off during the winter from all 
_ the rest of Alaska and reached only by the mail-dog teams 
which came twice a month, formed a field different from those 
to which I had ministered, but none the less interesting. I 
had to be everything to those people, from spiritual adviser 
to umpire of a basket-ball game. Of one thing I have al- 
ways been glad, that I had had the foresight to collect from 
churches, Sunday Schools and women’s societies many mail- 
sacks full of books, magazines and periodicals, and thus could 
establish a reading room at Iditarod. Only mail of the first- 
class could come in during the winter, but these abundant 
supplies which reached me in the summer found their way to 
lonely cabins three hundred miles distant, and the miners often 


422 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


said: “ They kept us from going crazy.” Men gathered into 
my little reading room daily, and remained long into the night, 
reading, playing games, keeping warm and cheerful. Direct 
spiritual fruits were not lacking. 

It became evident during the winter that we must have a 
meeting of the Presbytery of Yukon and send a commissioner 
to the General Assembly in the spring of 1912. We had been 
compelled to pass by a number of Assemblies, and the ques- 
tion arose whether it was worth while to sustain this pres- 
bytery, or whether it should be disbanded and merged in the 
Presbytery of Alaska. I had faith in the great field occupied 
by the young presbytery and was much opposed to dissolv- 
ing it, so we arranged a meeting at Cordova in April of that 
year. This decision necessitated a trip with my dog team five 
hundred miles over three ranges of mountains and across three 
river valleys to Seward, and a steamboat trip of two hundred 
miles on to Cordova. My friends at Iditarod and in New 
York were chary, and disposed to put obstacles in my way, 
fearing that I could not make the hard trip in safety. They 
did not know the real pleasure which I have always taken in 
such trips. I left my friends in Iditarod the fourth of March. 
A young Scotchman, by the name of William Breeze, went 
with me to take care of the dogs and help me in the trip. 

It was a very hard “ mush,” but full of joy. It was spring 
time, and the snow was heavy, with frequent fresh falls of it. 
But I had no trouble, with the exception of a fall on the ice 
of the upper Kuskoquim which resulted in a severe attack of 
lumbago, so that for two weeks of the trip I could not move 
without great pain. I made my own the philosophy of an old- 
timer whom I met.at a roadhouse near Rainy Pass just after 
I had met with the accident. He had suffered from the same 
affliction himself and said, ‘‘ Waal, the only way to do when 
you git the lumbago is jest to keep on mushin’.” 

Breeze would have to lift me out of my bunk in the morn- 


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FRIENDLY ALASKA AND LONELY NEW YORK 423 


ing, stand me up on my feet and set me going; then I could 
mush along until noon time, for there were very few places 
where either of us could ride on that rough trail; then after 
lunch he would help me get started again. 

At Knick, at the head of Cooks Inlet, I preached the first 
sermon that had ever been proclaimed in a region as large as 
the state of New York, although there always had been In- 
dians there, and white miners and their families, for ten years. 
This visit and my appeals resulted in the placing of a good 
man, Mr. Howard, there the following spring. 

The trip over the Chugach and Kenai ranges, between Knick 
and Seward, will always be remembered with a sigh because of 
the pain I suffered from my lame back on those rugged heavy 
trails. But the warm greeting I received from Mr. Pederson, 
the Methodist minister at Seward, and the still warmer greet- 
ing from my wife at Cordova, who had come up from Seattle 
to meet me, from Dr. Condit, who had come with his wife from 
Fairbanks, and from Mr. Koonce and his wife and my old 
parishioners, made me forget what I had suffered on the trail. 
The joy of accomplishment under hard circumstances—that 
is the greatest in life after all. “Everything is worth just 
what it costs.” 

At the meeting of Presbytery we elected Dr. Condit to the 
General Assembly which was to meet at Louisville, and I went 
over the trail back to Fairbanks by stage sled, and looked 
after my old charge in Dr. Condit’s absence. When he re- 
turned the first of July I took steamer again to Ruby, stopped 
there long enough to arrange for sending a missionary to that 
point, and then back to spend the rest of the summer at 
Iditarod. By the latest boat down I returned to Holy Cross, 
then to Nome and by the next steamer from Nome to Seattle 
and back by way of Denver to New York. 

A busy winter of lecturing followed, and in the spring I 
went to Atlanta, Georgia, as commissioner to our General As- 


424 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


sembly. It was a wonderful event, as the United Presbyterian 
Assembly and the Southern Presbyterian and ours all met at 
the same time and place, but, of course, in different churches. 
The fellowship, the great choruses of coloured men and women 
and the unions in the largest halls were events that do not fade 
from memory. 

Before the Assembly eheciad I had been making all ar- 
rangements with my son-in-law, Captain Kleinschmidt, for a 
hunting trip to the Arctic regions and along the coast of 
Alaska. The Board had granted me a vacation of five months. 
Three wealthy hunters from Philadelphia and one from Al- 
bany, New York, had arranged to charter a vessel for the hunt, 
and I was invited to go along as their guest. I told Dr. John 
Timothy Stone, the moderator, that I was going to get a walrus 
and have two ivory gavels made, one for him as outgoing 
moderator, and another for whoever should be elected in 1914. 

The great hunt of that summer stands out as one of the 
most thrilling experiences of my life. Captain Kleinschmidt 
had chartered a three-masted power schooner, the “ P. J. Ab- 
ler.” It sailed from Seattle with a crew in May, Captain 
Kleinschmidt taking it along the coast of Southeastern and 
Southern Alaska, having a hunt of his own on the Alaska Pe- 
ninsula, where he secured in one day five Kodiak bears, the 
mounted skins of which are still to be seen in the Carnegie 
Museum at Pittsburgh and form one of the finest animal 
groups on exhibition. Then he sailed to Nome, where the rest 
of us joined him. We got aboard the “ Abler ” at St. Michael 
in July, and had four months of wonderful shooting and thrill- 
ing experiences, first on the Siberian shore hunting, but not 
finding a new specie of mountain sheep; then up into the Arctic 
Ocean in the vicinity of Herald Island and Wrangell Land 
hunting, and getting some fine specimen of walrus and polar 
bears; then down through Bering Sea and Unimak Pass to 
the eastern shore of the Alaska Peninsula, in Pavlof Bay. We 


FRIENDLY ALASKA AND LONELY NEW YORK 425 


hunted the big bears again, and caribou. There I obtained 
two fine caribou heads, one of which I gave to the Presby- 
terian Board of Home Missions for their Assembly Room and 
the other to my boyhood friend, John Campbell of Butler, 
Pennsylvania. 

I met a very sore disappointment during this hunt. While 
stalking caribou I had come across the largest bear tracks I 
had ever seen—they were unbelievably large. The big beast 
evidently had been fishing for Dolly Varden trout, which 
thronged the mountain stream. I told Captain Kleinschmidt 
when I got into camp that I intended to get that bear, which 
evidently came fishing there every morning. The salmon 
fragments seemed very fresh, and I thought he had been there 
that day. ‘I am coming here to-morrow,” I said, “ and will 
make my nest right here on this point overlooking the little 
valley, and J’ll get that bear!” 

Next morning the other hunters all started out, while I re- 
mained in camp, not wishing to go to the stream, which was 
ten miles distant, until late in the afternoon. Unfortunately 
the cook was out of meat, and asked me if I couldn’t bring 
some in. 

“Yes,” I replied, “‘ there is a fine caribou carcass a mile 
from here, and I’ll go and cut off a good-sized roast for you.” 

The meat was so fine that I took a larger piece than I 
should. I strapped it on my back and was attempting to 
rise when I felt a pang strike through the small of my back, 
as from a spear-thrust. My old enemy, lumbago, had me 
again. I got the meat to camp, and lay down waiting for 
the pain to cease, so that I might go after my bear; but in 
an hour I could not move without torture. We went back to 
the boat next morning; the other hunters helped me up, and 
then I could not sit down even to rest, but had to stay on 
my feet until we reached the Coast, eight miles away. I knew 
that if I once sat I could not get up again. I lost my bear, 


426 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


I think he is still waiting for me, and I hope no other man 
has molested this splendid big fellow. I shall always regret 
him. 

I got my walrus and my gavels in the Arctic, and presented 
the latter to the moderators of the General Assembly and these 
gavels, skilfully carved by Eskimos, are preserved in glass 
cases by Drs. Alexander and Stone. A walrus head which I 
had killed was delivered to my friend John Campbell, and 
since his death his son, of the same name, has sent it to me. 
The fine big head is now gracing the room of my study. The 
only grudge I hold against my family is that I cannot induce 
them to call it “ beautiful.” It represents to me a thrilling 
experience which still tingles pleasurably down my spine when 
I think of it—the most difficult and finest shot I ever made: A 
bouncing oomiak surging in one direction, the big three-ton 
beast humping himself in the other, a rifle swinging up for a 
snapshot—and success! 


XL 


THE HOMECOMING 


HE period of my exile from Alaska, dating from the 
fall of 1913, when I returned from my hunt, to the 


spring of 1921, when I went back to Alaska, was a 
time of no less strenuous activity but of duty far less to my 
taste than pioneering in Alaska. I had an office in the rooms 
of the mission Board in New York, my own secretary and a 
constant pressure of work upon me. In the first place I must 
help our general secretary in the management of the Alaska 
missions, and do a great part of the correspondence; I must 
write the leaflets and the appeals and articles necessary to 
procure the men for our missions and inform the churches of 
our needs. I must prepare two illustrated lectures on Alaska, 
and select and have made appropriate pictures for them. In 
addition to this office work I must be at the beck and call 
of the Assembly, synods, presbyteries and individual churches 
to Alaska to provide the funds for forward work. 

I was made the secretary for Alaska of the Interdenomina- 
tional Home Missions Council, and had the task of re-allocat- 
ing the different regions of my great Territory to the appro- 
priate denominations, and of inducing these bodies to take up 
new work in their allotted fields. 

In the spring of 1914 I had to spend a considerable period 
in Chicago and other parts of Illinois and of the Middle West. 
I had the good fortune to find two splendid young men, who 
had thriving churches in Chicago and yet had the missionary 
spirit sufficiently strong in them to induce them to give up their 
work in the city and accept charges in Alaska. Rev. James 

427 


428 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


L. McBride was commissioned to Cordova and Rev. Emil L. 
Winterberger to Skagway. These two young men, both re- 
cently graduated from McCormick Seminary, were capable and 
fearless, and proved to be unusual finds. They did splendid 
work for years in the various Alaska fields in which they 
laboured. 

The government railroad from Seward to Fairbanks, four 
hundred and fifty miles, with a branch to the Matanuska coal 
fields, was being constructed, and new towns were springing 
up. After a year at Cordova we found it necessary to send 
McBride to the new camp of Anchorage on Cooks Inlet, which 
the railroad had reached and which speedily became the 
metropolis of that southwestern section. 

Another young man from McCormick Seminary was sent to 
Cordova, and with him we sent a stalwart six-footer, Hughes, 
just graduated from the Union Seminary of Richmond, Vir- 
ginia. He had paid his way through the seminary by coaching 
college football teams. He found use for his muscles as well 
as his brains in the rough coal and railroad camps of Mata- 
nuska. Presently the railroad was pushed past the majestic 
McKinley Range to the interior. The town of Nenana, on the 
Tanana, sixty miles from Fairbanks, rapidly rose to prom- 
inence when the railroad was reaching it, and Rev. R. J. Diven, 
who had already done good work in Southeastern Alaska, at 
Petersburg and Sitka, was chosen to go back from Oregon and 
take up this interior work. 

The task of financing these enterprises fell upon me. I 
raised ten thousand dollars, nearly all from individuals, to 
establish the work at Anchorage and Matanuska; and two 
years later, seven thousand dollars to commence that at 
Nenana. The latter sum was exceptionally difficult to raise, 
for the reason that the United States had now entered the 
World War, and rich donors were absorbed in war activities. 
But the money came, and these missions were established on 


THE HOMECOMING 429 


a substantial basis and have been doing splendid work ever 
since. 

My dear wife was taken sick, and after a very long illness 
passed to the better land in January, 1915, and since that 
time my family on the Coast has consisted of a daughter and 
her own three daughters. 

I was called upon to attend the meetings of the General As- 
sembly, to give illustrated lectures during the sessions and to 
keep Alaska before the Presbyterian public. During this time 
I found, or made, time to write my three books, Alaska Days 
with John Muir, The Klondike Clan and Adventures in 
Alaska, besides many magazine articles. 

At the meeting of the General Assembly in St. Louis, in 
1919, I was candidate for the moderatorship. Four other 
ministerial candidates withdrew in my favour, but this was 
‘elders’ year,” the first in which a ruling elder became eligible 
for the highest office in the Church. This fact enabled John 
Willis Baer, for years president of Occidental College in Los 
Angeles and prominent in Christian Endeavour work and other 
activities of the Church, to beat me. While this was a disap- 
pointment, it was not a bitter one, and I shed no tears and 
lost no sleep over it: 

The same year of 1919 marks two great events in my life—a 
triumph and a failure. The event of unmixed pleasure was 
the delivery of the address at the centennial of the organiza- 
tion of the Presbyterian Church of French Creek, West Vir- 
ginia, the Yankee community where my relatives reside. I 
preached from the same pulpit which my father, Loyal Young, 
had occupied fifty years before when he delivered the semi- 
centennial sermon. The same choir which sang for him fur- 
nished the music for this celebration, fifty years after. 
Friends and relatives from all over the United States gathered 
here in this country community, and several days of a love 
feast lifted me to heights of heavenly pleasure. 


430 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


The other event was the meteoric rise and fall of the Inter- 
church World Movement. I was personally interested in the 
success of this vast enterprise, for I had applied for the task 
of making a spiritual survey of Alaska and collecting its vital 
statistics. Under my direction all of the southwestern part of 
Alaska, south of the Kuskoquim Valley to the beginning of the 
Alaska Peninsula, including the Bristol Bay Country, Nunivak 
Island and three great river valleys, with the largest lakes of 
Alaska, Hliamna, Clark, Naknak, were allocated to the Presby- 
terian Church as a fresh field for evangelization. This region 
had received little or no attention from any American Church. 
The population was unknown, except on the Coast, where the 
devil was having his own way with the poor Eskimos by 
means of roving fishermen of all nationalities and the riff-raff 
of the whole world, including many fugitives from justice who 
were hiding in that far-away nook of the continent. 

I applied to the World Movement for appointment, made 
my estimate of $22,000, necessary to send myself and an expert 
photographer and a secretary from Fairbanks up the Kantishna 
River across Lake Minchumina to the north branch of the 
Kuskoquim, and down the whole length of that river, and into 
this unexplored region. I also undertook to explore other re- 
gions of the Yukon Valley, and visit the hitherto unknown 
tribes. My estimate was approved by the officers of the World 
Movement, and my offer accepted, and I engaged two fine 
Christian men to accompany me on this great exploration trip. 
I was happy. I would rather make that trip than go around 
the world or have a million dollars. But the World Movement 
collapsed, leaving the churches to shoulder a heavy debt. The 
Alaska survey had to be abandoned. 

Early in 1921 I was permitted to spread my wings again 
for a northward flight. My first object was to collect ma- 
terial for the present volume. I went also as an agent of the 
Board to make a report of conditions in Southeastern Alaska. 


THE HOMECOMING 431 


Leaving my family in New Jersey, I set sail to my old stamp- 
ing grounds, and arrived at Wrangell early in the spring. The 
natives of my early acquaintance, who still survived, greeted 
me with smiles and tears. The town was greatly changed. 
The community Indian houses were all removed, with the ex- 
ception of that of Chief Shakes, which is still presided over 
by his widow, whose principal occupation is to display curios, 
accumulated for many generations, to eager tourists who gladly 
pay her twenty-five cents for the privilege of seeing how her 
people used to live. The old church, which I built under so 
much difficulty in 1879, still stands, although there have been 
some changes and improvements. 

The summer and fall of 1921 were restful and enjoyable. 
My headquarters were at Wrangell, where my time was em- 
ployed in a round of occupations. Mrs. Tillie (Paul) Tamaree, 
my interpreter in the early days, who had taken her three 
fatherless boys to the East after the death of her husband, 
Louis Paul, and who afterwards had been employed for years 
as teacher in the Sitka Training School, had married a Stick- 
een. She still spent her winters as teacher in the schools, but 
her summers with her husband, who, like all the Stickeens, 
was a fisherman. I spent considerable time with her, jotting 
down in my notebook the language and customs of her people. 
She has long been the most influential native woman in Alaska, 
and is now employed by the Presbyterian National Board as 
a native evangelist, taking her place as pastor of a native 
church, | : 

Friends old and new at Wrangell and in other parts of the 
Territory enhanced my enjoyment. Rev. Franklin P. Rein- 
hold, a close friend from Warren, Ohio, was making a tour 
of Southern Alaska, and we spent some weeks together at 
Wrangell and made an enchanting trip with Dr. Story, who 
‘had just been appointed missionary to the Hydas. Very 
different from the former canoe trips was the journey which 


432 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


we made by large steamer to Ketchikan and then by com- 
fortable gasoline launch around Point Chacon (Mesatchie 
Nose), past the deserted old town of Klinkwan to Hydaberg. 
The people were nearly all absent fishing for the different sal- 
mon canneries in that region, but their houses and gardens 
were there. The inspiring view of the large government school 
and the beautiful church reared by these Hydas,and the manse 
built by the former pastor, gave evidence of progress. 

Mr. Bromley, the missionary of Klawack, came to Hyda- 
berg, and took the three of us on a little missionary gas boat 
to Klawack. Thence, after a Sunday of services in the new 
church and rest in the fine manse, both of which were built 
by one of our missionaries, we made the tour of a number of 
fishing camps and canneries, meeting here and there Indian 
men and women I had known when they were heathen savages, 
but who were now sober, respectable Christian citizens. Later 
in the summer, with Rev. Messrs. Waggoner, Beck and Win- 
terberger, I traveled on our fine mission boat, ‘“‘ The Lois,” the 
gift of Mr. Childs of restaurant fame, to most of the missions, 
canneries and mines and native towns of the great Archi- 
pelago, preaching, fishing and renewing old acquaintanceships, 
and filling my mind and heart full of wonder at the transfor- 
mation—and a proud sense of achievement. 

I had expected to return to New York and take up my duties 
as representative of the Board for Alaska, but in the fall, 
when Dr. Condit was chosen superintendent of the Sitka Train- 
ing School, now called ‘“‘ The Sheldon Jackson School,” a re- 
quest came from the Board that I resume my office of General 
Missionary; and the task was laid upon me of Komp a re- 
organizing Alaska mission work. 

As a preliminary to the task, I spent six weeks on the West 
Coast, with headquarters at Klawack in the manse of Mr. 
Bromley, who had gone with his family on his vacation to 
Southern California. Dr. Story’s health suddenly failed, and 


7 


THE HOMECOMING 433 


he left Hydaberg, so I ministered to those two points and 
Craig, a fishing town of whites and natives, which lay between 
them. I was getting back into the old missionary life, with 
fresh understanding of the natives and of their needs, and be- 
gan forming plans for their more complete civilization, when 
suddenly I was again stricken with lumbago and was incapaci- 
tated most of the winter. I endured a painful journey on the 
mail steamer in stormy weather to Wrangell, and still groan 
when I think of it. A lurching little boat, almost turning 
somersaults, a pain-stricken man clinging to an iron rod as 
he lay on the upper berth trying desperately to keep from be- 
ing pitched to the other side of the cabin, convulsions of sea- 
sickness with cramps and spasms of pain, a long journey at 
midnight when we reached Wrangell and the storm prevented 
us from docking. Then a week in the hotel, ministered to 
by Judge Thomas, Dr. and Mrs. Diven and other friends, a 
further journey on to Juneau, where I was attended by a 
volunteer nurse, Father Gallant, a Catholic priest from Skag- 
way. A kindly reception in the Northern Light manse was 
given me by Dr. and Mrs. Bruce. 

My daughter and her three daughters came from New Jersey 
in the summer of 1922, and our home life in Alaska was joy- 
fully resumed. My daughter had been born at Wrangell, 
and her twin daughters at Nome, so they were all true Alas- 
kans. Scott C. Bone was governor of the Territory at that 
time, and he and his family were among our closest friends. 
Our house, which we called ‘“‘ Swallows’ Nest ’’—it was set into 
a cliff nd reached by a long flight of stairs from the street 
below---overlooked the governor’s mansion. 

Two trips into the interior for the inspection of our churches 
at Cordova, Anchorage, Fairbanks and Nenana, and my efforts 
to man these missions with good men, occupied the greater 
portion of my time. 

In the spring of ’24 I was chosen chaplain of the senate at 


434 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


the meeting of the Territorial legislature, the office coming to 
me unsought at the hands of old friends whom I had known 
in various parts of the Territory. 

In the spring of 1924 I went as commissioner to the General 
Assembly, which met at Grand Rapids, Michigan. I witnessed 
and participated in the struggle between the Fundamentalists 
and the more liberal wing. I belong to the latter group. 

The fiftieth anniversary of our class at Wooster College— 
that is, the class to which I belonged most of my time at 
Wooster, that of 1874—brought me the extreme pleasure of 
greeting a number of my old friends and classmates of fifty - 
years before. To my surprise I found that they had all grown 
into white-haired old men and women, several of them quite 
feeble, walking with canes and being waited upon by their 
grandchildren. I did not feel old at all, but then I could not 
see myself as I saw them. However, we were a youthful 
crowd when we sat at the table of Dr. Notestine, the ‘‘ Pap” 
of our “ Apple Butter Club ” in those far-away days. 

After the Assembly I hastened to conduct two Presbyterian 
excursions to Alaska and during the past five years I have 
acted as pilot, lecturer and information bureau for nine of 
these excursions to the Wonderland of America. ‘The zest 
and enjoyment of these trips, when I guide sightseers to the 
most majestic scenes of Nature’s great panorama, renew my 
youth, and I plan for future trips far ahead. 

In the fall of 1924 I moved with my family to Seattle, which 
is now my present home; but I am not severed from my be- 
loved Territory, the best place on earth, in my judgment, to 
live in and work in. I am still the representative of the Board 
for Alaska, and have an active part in all its plans; and the 
part played by the Presbyterian Church in the development 
of the Empire of the North is not lessening, but increasing. 


XLI 


L’ENVOI 


Y farewell shall be brief. In looking back over my 
M eighty years they seem but a span, and in review- 
ing my story of them I am conscious that many of 
the most important episodes have been neglected, while those 
of less moment have been enlarged upon perhaps unduly. One 
word stands out as the sum of all worth-while activities— 
“ Alaska.” What this great Territory has already proved her- 
self to be, and the promise of her future greatness loom high 
above all other places or circumstances that my life has 
touched. For her I feel that I was created as one small ele- 
ment in her salvation and progress. From another angle it 
seems as if the greatest honour that could have been conferred 
upon me was that I should have even that small part in her 
redemption from savagery to Christian civilization. 

Were time to roll backward and the finger of Providence 
to point to the puny Butler boy, and His voice to command, 
“Choose your place and career from all the opportunities of 
the world,” my answer would be prompt—“ Alaska! ” 

Contrasting the then and the now of Alaska, the change | 
seems almost unbelievable. Then, a wild, raw, unexplored 
and, in the thought of America, “ unexplorable ” land, with but 
one asset of value—the furs of wild animals; and a wild, 
ignorant and irreclaimable people with no outlook; a country 
of so little importance that the United States government did 
not think it worth while to expend any funds in affording these 
savages and the few rough whites among them even the rudest 
and cheapest kind of civil government. The only material 
value worth considering was the “seal fisheries,” and these 
must be conserved only that the seven million dollars “ squan- 

435 


436 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


dered” for the purchase of the Territory should be repaid. 
Not a gold mine, copper mine, coal mine, marble quarry, saw- 
mill, salmon ‘cannery, herring fishery, plow, team of horses, 
or road in the whole Territory! No lighthouses, beacons or 
survey posts to mark the way along her rugged coasts! No 
dream on the part of any one that Seward’s prophetic words 
when urging the purchase were anything but “ hot air.” 

Now, a land repeatedly named on the floor of the United 
States senate as ‘‘ the richest portion of either American con- 
finentaicy.. 3 

Already, in spite of bureaucracy, red tape, ‘‘ busted booms ” 
and hundreds of other hindrances, the timid investment of 
seven million dollars has yielded nearly a billion and a half 
dollars of profit. One copper mine during the World War 
produced more than four times the purchase money paid for 
the whole Territory. Salmon canneries, herring, cod and hali- 
but fisheries have produced more than half a billion in food 
products. Great sawmills are sending fine lumber to the prin- 
cipal ports of the world and paper companies are building 
vast factories to supply the. world’s readers with books 
and newspapers. Farmers are sowing wheat, oats, bar- 
ley and other grains upon her fertile acres and planting vege- 
tables and fruits with astonishing returns. Every kind of 
mineral found anywhere else on the North American continent 
is produced in Alaska, and the result of the fitful prospecting 
and timid investments already ventured have astonished the 
nation and fired the imagination of the world with visions of 
larger adventures. Seward’s Folly has become Seward’s Wis- 
dom; Uncle Sam’s Ice-Box, Uncle Sam’s Treasure House; and 
“The Land that God Forgot,” ‘“ God’s Country.” And the 
people!—-two hundred whites some fifty years ago have in-~ 
creased to some forty thousand residents, while many other 
thousands come and go. Three great steamer lines convey 
thousands of wondering tourists and millions of dollars in goods 


L’ENVOI 437 


to the many busy ports of that Territory. Up-to-date cities 
with all the comforts and luxuries of the age welcome and de- 
light travelers; a fine school system, with public schools, high 
schools and a college, teaches the white children, while hun- 
dreds of government training schools and polytechnic institu- 
tions are training the natives for Christian citizenship. 

Alaska is still the mecca of hunters of big game, and her un- 
surpassed scenery does not diminish in grandeur and beauty 
because of the increasing thousands that view them; but the 
land can no longer be called a wilderness. The imagination of 
those who know Alaska best is fired with greater and brighter 
visions of her future achievements. As one of her best in- 
formed citizens exclaimed, “ Nothing is impossible for Alaska.” 

There are still savages in Alaska, but as compared with the 
natives who have attained some degree of education and en- 
lightenment, they are very few. The Presbyterian Church is 
still foremost, both among the natives and the whites, in the 
number of its missions and workers and the amount of money 
annually invested. The Protestant Episcopal Church is sec- 
ond, and the Roman Catholic Church third, and after them 
other denominations are doing Christian work here and there - 
in the Territory. Southeastern Alaska, the most accessible 
part of the Territory, whose native peoples descend from the 
Japanese and are the brightest and most susceptible to Chris- 
tian civilization, has made astonishing progress. The old com- 
munity house has disappeared, and in its place neat cottages 
have been built by the natives themselves; villages that have 
electric lights, telephones, good water systems and churches 
are marks of a civilization still incomplete but promising a 
future very bright and beautiful in contrast with their past. 
The word of a government official recently uttered hardly 
seems extravagant. He exclaimed, ‘“‘ The natives of Alaska 
have made more progress in the last forty years than the whites 
did in forty centuries.” 


438 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


The natives of Southeastern Alaska may be said to be all 
“Christians. The medicine-men with their unholy incanta- 
tions have disappeared. The belief in witchcraft, while it still 
exists, is held in abeyance, and produces no persecutions. The 
people are still fishermen, but instead of the canoe they have 
gas boats and modern appliances. The universally prevailing 
and hideous immorality is yielding to Christian teachings and 
the customs of civilization. All of the younger generation can 
talk English, and in many towns the language of civilization 
has entirely replaced that of savagery. Not only carpenters, 
boat-builders, machinists, shoemakers, dressmakers and good 
cooks are sent forth from our training schools, but lawyers, 
doctors and ministers of the Gospel as well. The right of suf- 
frage is exercised by native men and women, and their votes 
are on the side of sobriety, law and order. 

Even the Eskimos of the far Northwest, while their climate 
and conditions forbid as marked progress as the natives of the 
milder parts of the Territory have made, have embraced Chris- 
tianity, and are learning the English language and civilized 
ways. The reindeer introduced from Siberia by Dr. Sheldon 
Jackson, one of the Presbyterian missionaries, have increased 

. from one thousand to half a million, and are already promis- 
ing to help solve in a large degree the States’ meat problem of 
the future. 

It is doubtful whether the investment of Christian funds 
and of Christian efforts in any other part of the world has 
more to show for it in the same length of time and with the 
same amount of money and effort expended than in Alaska. 
The future is bright with hope. 

To have had some little part in this great work of bringing 
up a savage people to “ the light and liberty of the children 
of God” I count the greatest blessing that could be bestowed 
upon any mortal. That I have been so favoured is a source of 
constant and humble gratitude. Much remains to be done 


———— Ee Ne a a, © ee eee 


VIAISV IV 














L’ENVOI 439 


both for the natives and the whites of our great Territory. 
The present campaign in which I am engaged of raising a 
fifty-thousand-dollar memorial fund to establish an institu- 
tion for the training of a native ministry and to enlarge our 
work of planning hospitals, training schools, agricultural in- 
struction and means of spreading the Gospel, seems to me one 
of the most important enterprises in which I have been en- 
gaged. It does not chiefly depend upon my efforts, but I am 
glad to be still of use to my beloved Alaska. The Territory 
is my land, in a fuller sense perhaps than can be said of any 
other man or woman. I am proud of her, and most hopeful 
for her future.“ That I have had the privilege of ministering to 
her highest needs and furthering her advancement fills me with 
thankfulness and joy. ‘ From Alaska I have received a thou- 
sand-fold more than I have been able to give her—health, long 
life, the joy of living, freedom from care, inspiration, hope, 
a fuller faith and a wider charity for my fellow-man and for 
those who hold different creeds than mine.’ To the end of my 
life I shall cherish the land of my adoption as the greatest, 
freest and happiest land under the sun. 

But beyond all plans for the future evangelization of Alaska 
looms a dream which I have cherished and to some extent ex- 
ploited for the past ten years. That is “ The United Evan- 
gelical Church of Alaska.” Canada, Australia, and the mission 
fields of Japan, Korea and parts of India have set the example 
in the union of evangelical denominations under one name 
and plan. One of the greatest hindrances to Christian work 
has been the over-churching of tribes and of white towns. 
Two or three struggling churches, each helped and dominated 
by a separate denomination, with their several pastors striv- 
ing to exceed their rivals—the spectacle witnessed in so many 
Western communities—has checked the Christian work and 
destroyed the peace of many a town which has been progress- 
ing in other respects. It seems to me that Alaska is more 


440 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA 


favourably situated than any other country for the experi- 
ment of Christian unity, without in any way diminishing the 
force of Christian propaganda. This United Church would 
be free to launch into a wider, fuller and more Christlike 
Christianity. To this end I dedicate the remainder of 
my life—however long or short it may be. 

This I have learned, to a degree of completeness which I 
think would not have been attained in any other land, that 
peace and happiness are commensurate with the degree of 
struggle and self-sacrifice that have preceded them; that peace 
and rest of soul come not only as the result of effort, but in 
the very midst of it. 


INDEX 


Abbott, Dr. Lyman, 418 

A B Company, 390 

Adventures in Alaska, 
Young, 429 

Alaska, beginning of progress, 277, 
279; canning industry, 274; civil 
government needed, 258; coal 
fields, 415; contrasted with New 
York, 419 et seq.; copper produc- 
tion, 415 et seq.; Democratic offi- 
cials, 280; denominations repre- 
sented, 421, 440; derogatory re- 
ports on, 273; development, 272 et 
seg., 435; district government 
granted, 274; early police, 220; 
education centered at Sitka, 311; 
fishing, 86, 99, 243, 303; first mis- 
sionary, 64; first Protestant 
Church, 172, 179 et seq.; “ fron- 
tier” justice, 163; fur trading 
and its results, 272; game ani- 
mals, 99, 306, 411, 424, 437; gla- 
ciers, 175 et seq., 198, 250, 416; 
harbours, 76; Harriman Scientific 
Expedition, 386; languages used, 
88; lawlessness, 84, 103, 162; 
mineral resources, 415; moral 
conditions, 95; Morgan-Guggen- 
heim syndicate, 415; natural re- 
sources, 86, 99, 4360; new gold 
camps, 420; nicknames, 436; 
northern lights display, 260 et 
seq., 339; census, 191; officials re- 
moved, 276; place names, 76; pub- 
lic schools, 281, 311; purchase of, 
66; railroads, 403, 428; Russians 
in, 78, 179, 258; scenery, 70 et 
seq.; seal rookeries investigated, 
191; Sitka, 64, 256, 311; Skagway 
development, 383, 403; snowfall, 
414; soldiers, 82; squaw men, 282 
et seq.; survey of, 63; territorial 
convention, 258; territorial legis- 
lature, 434; then and now, 435; 
whiskey prohibited, 165; white 
men in, 82 

Alaska Commercial Company, 274, 
328, 341, 302 


S. Hall 


Alaska Days with John Muir, S. 
Hall Young, 177, 180, 211, 251, 429 
Alaska Exploration Company, 388, 


302 
Althorf, Father, 171, 225, 253 
American Tract Society, 42 
Arthur, President, 270, 275 
Athenean Literary Society, 58 


Baer, John Willis, 429 
Ballard, Frank, 60 
Ballinger, Richard A., 415 
Barnes, George, 310 
Barrack, George, 361 
Beach, Rex, 330, 416 


Bear, 407 

Beardslee, Commander, 204, 226, 
252 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 60, 307 

“Bertha’’, 405 


Bompas, Bishop, 350 

Bond, William H., 307 

Bone, Gov. Scott C., 433 

Book of Martyrs, John Foxe, 42 
Boyd, Rev. Robert, 69 

Brady, Rev. John G., 66, 77, 79, 268 
Brainerd, David, 62 

Brainerd Missionary Society, 58 
Breeze, William, 422 

Brooks, Rev. Asa, 23, 29 
Brooks, Myra, 55 

Browning, Robert, 50 

Bruce, Dr. and Mrs., 433 

Bruce, Minor, 393 

Bunten, Irene, 56 

Bunyan, John, 39, 42 
Burroughs, John, 211, 386 


Cadenhead, surveyor, 374 

“ California”, 69, 73, 161 

Campbell, John, 425 

Carlyle, Thomas, 352 

Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Pa., 
152, 424 

“ Cassiar ”, 174, 175, 181 

Cassiar stampede, 80, 170, 314, 358 

Chapman, James, 238, 257 


441 


442 


Charles II, King, 26 

Chisholm, Anna, 270, 310 

Choquette, Alex, 80 

Civil war, 48, 54 

Colbreath, John, 322, 328 

Condit, James H., 405, 415, 423 

Confession of Faith, Westminster, 
26, 374 

Converse, John H., 403, 407 

Corleis, Dr., 108, 181, 215, 221, 225, 

249, 257, 258 

Course of Time, Pollock, 43 

Crittenden, Colonel, 95, 128, 
161, 164, 166, 220, 280 

Cromwell, Bridget, 26 

Cromwell, Oliver, 26 

Crosby, Wesleyan Missionary, 88, 
242, 243 


153, 


Dall, William H., 63, 268, 386 

Davy, Dr., 396 

Dawn, Judge, 277 

Dawson, Judge, 279 

Dawson, Catholic hospital, 349, 375, 
378; death rate, 354; miners’ li- 
brary, 352; Protestant hospital 
founded, 379; Young’s parish, 
344 et seq., 374 

Deady, Judge, 164 

Dewey, Admiral, 378 

Dickinson, Mrs. George, interpreter, 
77, 92, 116, 119, 130, 137, 150, 165, 
210, 243, 2 

Dickinson, Sarah, 92 

Diven, Dr. R. J. and Mrs., 
428, 433 

Dixon, Dr. John, 64, 66 

Dunbar, Maggie, 173, 242, 254 

Duncan, Father, 88, 110 et seq., 159, 
242 et seq., 260, 307 

Duryea, Dr., 


44, 228, 


Eliot, John, 62 

Elliott, Henry W., 191, 273 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 352 

Evangeline, Henry Wadsworth 
Longfellow, 390 


Fairbanks, stampede, 280; denomi- 
nations represented, 412; food 
problems, 411; marriage, 411; 
marvelous climate, 409; village 
growth, 409 


INDEX 


Farrington, Will, 361 

Fawcett, gold commissioner, 347, 
355, 308, 371 

Ferguson, Beatty, 59 

Field, Cyrus W., 63 

Field, David Dudley, 269 

Field, Dr. Henry M., 202, 261, 269 

Fish, kinds, 86 

Fleetwood, General, 26 

Fort Wrangell, 64-313 

Frank, Rev. Howard, 409, 413, 414 

French Creek, W. Va., centennial 
celebration, 429; educational cen- 
ter, 23, 55, 50; Young family in, 
22, 5 

From Dawn to Dusk, Loyal Young, 


53 
Fuertes, Professor, 386 


Gallant, Father, 433 

Geike, James, 199 

George III, King, 21 

George, Senator, 250, 274 

“George W. Elder ”, 386 

Gillis, Alec, 344, 356, 368 

Ginseng, 30 

“Glacier, The”, 271, 280, 304, 308 

Glacier Bay, 197 et seq., 205 

Gold, 171; first discovery in Alaska, 
80; Juneau discovery, 274; rushes 
(see Cassiar, Fairbanks, Juneau, 
Klondike, Nome); Stickeen river 
bed, 80; Treadwell mine, 258 

Gordon, Dr., 307 

Gospel by Canoe, The, S. Hall 
Young, 202 

Gould, Benjamin, 22 

Gould, Captain Gilbert; 22 

ee Captain J. Loomis, 238, 257, 


Gould, Jay, 22 

Gould, Lydia, 21 

Gould, Nathan, 23 

Grant, Dr. Andrew, 380, 383 
Grant, John, 328 

Grant, President, 49 

Great Northern Railway, 318 
Green, Dr. William Henry, 292 


Hale, Sir Matthew, 145 
Hall, Dr. John, 60, 307 
Harding, President, 250 
Harpers magazine, 273 
Harrison, President, 2590, 274, 280 


INDEX 443 


Harrison, Rev. Norman, 387 

Healy, J. J., 328 

Herbert, George, 43 

Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Long- 
fellow, 39 

History of the United States, 
George Bancroft, 65 

Hodge, Dr. A. A., 60 

Hodge, Dr. Charles, 58 

Hodge, Kittie, 50 

Holland, Dr. W. J., 152 

Holt, Dr. W. S., 403 

Horace, 270 

Hosack, Rev. Herman, 407 

Howard, Gen. O. O., 64 

Howe, Rev. John L., 239 

Hudson’s Bay Fur Company, 272 

Hyda Indians, 65, 81, 92, 95, 97, 100, 
104, 109, I12, 127, 156, 164, 191, 
259; arts and crafts, 230, 231; 
canoes, 231; Christian growth, 
235; industries, 231; Kenowan’s 
totem poles, 234; legends, 300; 
memorial church, 236; origin un- 
known, 230; progress made by, 
235; Young’s visit to, 233 


Idaho, 267 

Indians, Alaskan, 65; attitude to- 
ward white, 85, 190; Auk, 81, 
185, 213; burning of McFarland 
Home, 266; canoe, 183; Carlisle 
training school, 227, 256, 311; 
census taken, 190; changes in 
habits, 311; Chemawa training 
school, 311; Chilcat, 81, 82, 87, 
IOI, 185, 193, 205 et seq., 213, 253, 
; Chilcoot, 205, 253; Chinook, 
87, 92, 256; Christian architecture, 
244; Christian awakening, 88 et 
seq., 136, 254, 437; Christian 
marriage enforced, 160; Council 
work, 143, 265; cremation prac- 
tised, 134; crime and punishment, 
IOI; customs, 65; dances discon- 
tinued, 160; drunkenness among, 
165, 221 et seq.; education, 79; 
English difficult for, 94; enter- 
tainment of Young and Muir, 193, 
206; family names, 82, 97; finest 
specimens, 185; fishing industry, 
244; Flathead, 127; food, 213, 303, 
304; Forest Grove training school, 
256; funeral customs, 83; govern- 


ment responsibility for outrages, 
226; growth in civilization, 406; 
habits, 79; habits contagious, 74 
et seq.; Hampton training school, 
311; Hanega, 81, 134; hired by 
miners, 80; honesty, 197; Hooch- 
enoo, 81, 103, 121, 134, 185, 186, 
192, 252; Hoonah, 81, 154, 186, 
193; hunting and fishing, 86; 
Hyda (see separate item); Tht 
(see medicine-men) ; immorality, 
309; “Indian shame”, 221; in- 
dustries, 118; ingratitude, 111; 
intermarriage with whites, 89; in- 
terpreters, 92, I19, 120, 126, 130, 
139, 147, 151, 186, 207, 234, 280, 
431; Kake, 81, 84, 96, 164, 186, 
190, 220, 253; Klamath, 256; lan- 
guages, QI et seq.; lapse into old 
ways, 264; McFarland Home for 
Girls, 102, 110, 161, 171, 173, 190, 
254, 264; manual training, 271, 
310; marriage laws, 96; massacre, 
18; medical superstitions, 106 e# 
seq.; medicine-men, 106, 113 et 
seq.; 110, 136, 146 et seqg., 213, 
238; mission teaching, 104, 117; 
Mrs. Young’s Training School 
for Boys, 161, 269; mythol- 
ogy, 289 et seqg.; native teach- 
ers, 227, 255; natural beggars, 
109; Neah Bay, 87; Nez Perce, 
256, 306; northern tribes, 205 et 
seq.; payment customs, 264; pid- 
gin-English used, 91; police, 245; 
Port Simpson, 244; present edu- 
cational plan, 310; progress, 311; 
Puyallup, 87, 256; religious be- 
liefs, 100; richest, 86; rum manu- 
factured, 192; self-support taught, 
266; Shaman (see  medicine- 
men); Sheldon Jackson Institute, 
259; Sitka, 81, 82; Sitka training 
school, 259, 260, 302, 431; 
slavery among, 87, 125, 211, 214; 
Spokane, 256; Stickeen, 80, 87, 92, 
100, 137, 164, 184; Sumdum, 215; 
survey planned, 181; Tacoo, 81, 
101, 121, 164, 186, 213, 215; Taltan, 
8, 121; Thlingit, 65, 83, 92, 95, 
97, 100, 104, 109, 112, 127, 134, 156, 
158, 191, 197, 230, 231, 259; Ton- 
gass, 81; totemic law, 96, 97; to- 
tem poles, 234, 237, 301; trade 


444 


goods, 87; training experiments, 
256; tribal enmities, 81, 220 et 
seq., 243; Tsimpshean, 88, 92, 97, 
II2, 231, 259; village life, 93; vil- 
lages, 82, 214; white men’s vices, 
86, 90, 146; winter inactivity, 157; 
witchcraft, 113 et seq., 129 et seq., 
137 Veh Sed... 213,07 240 et seg. 
women, 89; Wrangell training 
school, 302; Yakutat, 191; Yeatl 
legend, 289 et seq. 

Ingersoll, Robert G., 50 

In Memoriam, Alfred Tennyson, 51 

Inquirer, Cincinnati, 344 

Interchurch World Movement, 430 

Interdenominational Home Missions 
Council, 427 

Iron Trail, Rex Beach, 416 

Irving Literary Society, 58 


Jackson, Dr.- Sheldon, 63, 172 et 
seq., 180, 257, 259, 268, 269, 270, 
274, 275, 308, 315, 388, 405 

“Jamestown ”, 84, 204, 226 

Jeffers, Dr., 60 

Jefferson College, 31 

Jefferson Medical College, 108 

Johnston, Samuel, 33, 227 

Johnston, Wat., 26, 33 

Judge, Father, 349, 354, 355 

Judson, Adoniram, 62 

Juneau stampede, 314 


Keats, John, 43 

Kellogg, Mrs. Abby Lindsley, 307 

Kellogg, Fannie, 66, 77 et seq., 78, 
161 

Kellogg, Rev. Lewis, 307 

Kendall, Dr. Henry, 64, 66, 172 et 
seq., 180 

Kinkead, Gov. J. H., 275 

Kirk, J. W. and Mrs., 387, 400, 402 

Kleinschmidt, Captain, 408, 424 

Klondike Clan, The, S. Hall Young, 
323, 420 

Klondike stampede, 171, 280, 314; 
Canadian officials, 347, 362, 368, 
369, 380; Chilcoot Pass, 325 et 
seq., 330, 300; claim jumpers, 
371; dangerous trail, 325 et seq.; 
diseases general, 353; food short- 
age, 341, 350, 376; fresh recruits, 
379; glories of spring, 375; land 
assessment, 368 et seq.; loss of 


INDEX 


horses, 326, 327; mail distribution, 
302 et seg.; money shortage, 362; 
number of gold seekers, 323, 341, 
379; official graft, 362 et seq., 370, 
372; packing charges, 329; packs 
lost, 326; religion in, 341; routes 
followed, 318 et seq.; Skagway, 
323; strikes, 341, 352, 362, 381; 
“tenderfeet ” in, 318; transporta- 
tion difficulties, 322; types of 
men, 330 ef seqg.; war news re- 
ceived, 378 et seg.; White Pass, 
325 et seq., 330, 300; winter pro- 
tection, 358 et seg.; Young’s story, 
330 et seq. 

Koonce, Dr. M. Egbert, 385, 387, 
400, 402, 404, 423 

Koonooya, Peter, 403, 404, 406 


“ Leah”, 413 

Lear, William King, 129 

Lehmann, ’Dolf, 61 

Leonard, Dr., 412 

Liggett, Bill, 345 et seq., 365 

Lincoln, Abraham, 49, 126 

Lindsley, Dr. A. L,., 64 et seq.,, 60, 
172 et seq., 180, 250, 264, 274 

Livingstone, David, 62 

London, Jack, 330 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 39, 


50 

Lowrie, Dr. John C., 33, 62 

Lyon, Rev. George W., 230, 233, 
240, 256 


McAllister, Hall, 275 
McAllister, Ward, 275 
McAvoy, Lyda, 94, 270, 310 
MacBeth, Sue, 69 
McBride, Rev. James L,, 427 
McChesney, Robert, 411 
McClellan, General, 49 
McClelland, H. T., 61, 63 
McEwan, Dr. George, 
334, 358, 361 
McFarland, Mrs. A. R., 64 et seq., 
77, 87, 89 et seqg., 113 et seq., 134, 
136, 138, 168, 170, 225, 254, 264, 


310 

McFarland, J. W., 254, 264, 268, 
270 

McFee, Bill, 343 et seq., 357 

McGill, Dr. Alexander T., 59 


316, 318, 


INDEX, AA5 


McKay, Hudson’s Bay factor, 73 
et seq. 

McKay, Philip, 88 et seqg., 94, 116, 
312 

Mackenzie, Jean, 309 

McKinley, President, 315, 405, 415 

McMillan, Dr., 316 

Marquis, John A., 5-10 

Marsh, Dr., 387, 404 

Martin, Professor, 416 

Martyn, Henry, 62 

Mason, Julius, 156 

Massacre of Wyoming Valley, 42 

“ Mayflower, The”, 22 

Merriam, Professor, 386 

Metropolitan Museum, New York 
City, 234 

Metropolski, Father, 78 

Miles Standish, Henry Wadsworth 
Longfellow, 39 

Miller, Hugh, 201 

Miller, Joaquin, 95, 321, 378 

Miller of San Francisco, Senator, 
272 

Missions and missionaries: agricul- 
ture taught, 271; Alaskan growth, 
403, 437; attitude toward Indians, 
89 et seq.; blunders, 108 et seq.; 
Christmas celebration, 164; early 
hardships, 74, 88; Eastern sup- 
port, 171, 255, 407; first in Alaska, 
64; later stations, 387; need 
for, 104; Nome needs, 402; prep- 
aration necessary, 105 et seq.; 
progress, 157, 180; substitutes for 
Indian dances, 160; Sunday serv- 
ices, 118; varied duties, 99, 168, 
242; Wesleyan mission, IIo 

Mitchell, Dr. Weir, 366 

Moffatt, Robert, 62 

Moody, Dwight L,., 59, 188, 327 

Moran, Robert, 174 

Morris, William G., 274 

Muir, John, 172, 180, 257, 314, 320, 
413; Alaskan trip of 1899, 386; 
Burroughs’ opinion, 211; explora- 
tion of the Archipelago, 182 et 
seq., 186 et seg., 196 et seq.; 
glacier named for, 204, 250; gla- 
ciers studied, 175 et seq., 181; In- 
dian entertainment for, 193, 207; 
marriage, 248; newspaper offers 
to, 321; return to Wrangell, 248; 
second trip to Glacier Bay, 249 et 


seq.; sketches of coast, 198, 252; 
sympathy of, 212 

Murtagh, Billy, 396 

Museum, Chicago, IIl., 234 


Newell, Governor, 258 

New England Primer, 41 

New York Evangelist, The, 65, 182, 
202, 261, 269, 285 

Niccols, Dr. S. J., 316 

Nichols, Dr. Jeanette, 273, 275 

Night in Glacier Bay, A, S. Hall 
Young, 201 

Nome stampede, 280, 385 et seq.; 
Anvil Creek strike, 392, 401; beach 
digging, 392; Christmas celebra- 
tion, 3909; denominations repre- 
sented, 395; disease rampant, 303, 
306, 399; doctors and nurses, 300; 
generosity of miners, 391, 304; 
graft, 371; hospital, 395; lawless- 
ness, 401; limited area, 401; mail 
delays, 308; mosquito pests, 400, 
404; number of stampeders, 392, 
309; relief committees, 393; 
saloons, 401; strikes, 392; trans- 
portation problems, 388 

North American Trading and 
Transportation Company, 342 

Northern Pacific Railroad Com- 
pany, 252, 318 

Northwestern ‘Trading Company, 
252, 392 

Northwest Mounted Police, 363 

Notestine, Dr., 434 

Noyes, Judge, 277 


Occidental College, Los Angeles, 
429 
Olin, Harvey D., 357 


Paine, Thomas, 50 

Paoli, Pascal, 25 

Parsons, Dr., 412 

Patterson, Dr., 418 

Perkins, George W., 416 

Perrigo, Mrs., 306 

Petroff, Ivan, 191 

Phillips, Edward, 25, 30, 61 

Phillips, Frances, 227 

Pigeon shooting, 16 

Pilgrim’s Progress, The, John Bun- 
yan, 39, 42 


446 


Pioneers, education, 29, 53; poverty, 
37;, schoolhouses, 51; West Vir- 
ginia, 21 

“Pp. J. Abler”, 424 

Post-Intelligencer, Seattle, 378, 390 

Pratt, Captain, 227, 256 

Presbyterian Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions, 35, 62, 69 

Presbyterian Board of Home Mis- 
sions, 172, 257 

Presbyterian Board of National 
Missions, 227 

Princeton ‘Seminary, 58 

Pringle, Rev. John, 386 


“Queen”, 319, 353 


Rankin, Kate, 255, 264 

Reinhold, Rev. Franklin P., 431 

Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, Robert 
W. Service, 419 

“Roanoke ”’, 405 

Robertson, W. B., Jr., 258 

Robins, Raymond, 395 et seq. 

Robinson, Miss, teacher, 310 

Rocky Mountain Presbyterian, The, 
63 

Rogers, Newton, 38 

Roosevelt, President, 415 

Rowe, Rev. Peter, Bishop of 
Alaska, 382, 409 

Russo-Japanese war, 411 


“ Sadie, The”, 311, 407 

“ Saginaw ”’, 190 

Sankey, Ira D., 

“Saranac”, 85 

Saxman, government teacher, 306 

Schultze, Paul, 252 

Scovel, Harry, 333 

Scovel, Mrs. Harry, 333 

Scovel, S. F., president of Wooster 
College, 333 

Scripps-McRae newspapers, 344 

Scroggs, Rev. Luther M., 402 

Seaghers, Archbishop, 171 

Sermons and Dialogues, Porter, 42 

Service, Robert W., 330 

mone: William H., 63, 200, 413, 
41 

Seward, William H., Jr., 413 

Sheakley, Judge James, 280 

Sheridan, General, 90 


59, 188, 327 


INDEX 


Sheridan, Phil, nephew of General 
Sheridan, 332 

Shorter Catechism, Westminster, 22, 
39, 41, 43 

Slavery, Indian, 125, 127 et seq., 
211, 214; Negro, 54, 128; “ Under- 
ground Railway”, 48 

Smithsonian Institute, Washington, 
D. C., 63, 234, 3 

Snowden, James H., 61 

Spanish- American war, 308, 378 

Spining, Dr. George L,, 315 

“ Spokane”, 416 

Stephens, Alexander, 274 

Stickeen River, 

Stone, Dr. John Timothy, 424, 426 

Story, Dr., missionary, 431, 432 

Strong, Major and Mrs. J. F. A., 
322, 328, 396 

Stuck, Archdeacon, 70, 409 

Styles, Mr. and Mrs., 255 

Sutherland, Dan, 408 


Tales of the Scotch Covenanters, 


42 / 
Temperance, first society in United 
States, 24 
Tennyson, Alfred, 43, 50 
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 168 
Thomas, Judge, 433 
Thompson, Dr, Charles L., 59, 387, 


419 

Thousand and One Nights, The, 70 

Times, The, 411 

Travels in Alaska, John Muir, 177, 
189, 251 

Tribune, New York, 314 

Two Voices, The, Alfred Tenny- 
son, 51 


Union Theological Seminary, New 
York, 66 

Union Theological Seminary, Rich- 
mond, 428 


Vancouver, George, 78, 184, 197 

Vanderbilt, John, 77, 128, 173, 175, 
252 

Van Deventer, Isaac, 23 

Van Dyke, Dr. Henry, 406 

Victoria, B. C., 60, 75, 328 

Virgil, 235 


Wade, land commissioner, 360 





INDEX 447 


Waggoner, Rev. David, 228, 405 

Walsh, Major, governor of the 
Klondike, 348, 362 

Wanamaker, John, 403 

Watts’ Juvenile Hymns, 41 

West, Senator, 279 

Western Telegraph Company, 63 

Western Theological Seminary, 31, 
58, 60, 62, 66 

Wickersham, Judge, 409 

Wilkinson, Captain, 256 

Wilkinson, Mrs. Ella, 268 

Pe lecd, Rev. Eugene, 255, 268, 276, 
31 

Willoughby, Richard, 186 

Wilson, Captain, 279, 280, 308, 327 

Wilson, Dr. Samuel, 60 

Winterberger, Rev. Emil L., 428 

Wirt, Rev. L. L., 388, 395, 397; dog 
trip to coast, 398 

Witherspoon Institute, 18, 36, 47 

Women: death rate of girl babies, 
159; deformed in infancy, 159; 
girls’ education, 168; girls’ school 
in Washington, Pa., 270; immo- 
rality, 159; Indian, 89; in gold 
camps, 352, 377, 387, 39, 400, 402, 
411; pioneer, 36; status of Alas- 
kan Indian, 96, 08 et seq.; (see 
also McFarland Home under In- 
dians) 

Wonderful Story of Angoon, The, 
S. Hall Young, 227 

Wooster, College of, 57, 434 

World, New York, 333 

World war, 428 

Wrangell Island, 76 


Young, Annie, 28 

Young, Festus, 29 

Young, S. Hall: adoption of Hyda 
Susan, 231 et seq.; Alaska mis- 
sions, IQI9-1924, 430 et seq.; 
Alaskan church work developed, 
416; Alaska Presbytery, 267, 387, 
422; anti-rum campaign, 165 et 
seq.; anti-slavery activities, 128 et 
seq.; birth, 20 et seq.; blindness 
threatened, 55; camp  parson’s 
qualifications, 373 et seq.; catas- 
trophe, 224; centennial sermon at 
French Creek, 429; chiefs con- 
verted, 143; childhood, 36 e¢ seq.; 
childish idea of God, 43; church 


burned, 355; church problems, 
351; Commissioner to the General 
‘Assembly, 267 et seq.; community 
organized, 374; conversion, 52; 
Dawson parish, 343 et seq., 374; 
death of wife, 429; deer hunting, 
305; departure from Wrangell, 
313; description of sunrise, 202; 
dialect preaching inadvisable, 259, 
312; disappointment in 1919, 430; 
dog-team trips, 421 et seg.; East- 
ern contributions, 404; education, 
38 et seq., 41, 47 et seq.; explora- 
tion, 196 et seqg.; exposing the 
medicine-men, 146 et seq., 155 et 
seq.; extent of parish, 352; Fair- 
banks and its activities, 409 et seq.; 
farewell, 435 et seg.; Father Dun- 
can’s lessons, 244 et seq.; fighting 
witchcraft persecutions, 129 et 
SEQ.5)) 137m CLSEG es AEDS neh SEQ. 
finance responsibility, 428; first 
Alaskan impressions, 88; first 
child, 182; first introduction to 
Indians, 77; first sermon to gold 
seekers, 327; friends in need, 344 
et seg.; from Klondike to the 
East, 384; general activities, 158, 
242 et seq., 302 et seq.; General 
Missionary for Alaska, 405; 
granddaughters, 433; greatest In- 
dian problem, 157 et seq.; hatred 
of slavery, 48; home life, 37; 
hospital founded, 379; household 
at Wrangell, 92; hunting trip, 424 
et seq.; ill-health, 38, 47, 55, 180, 
400; important visitors, 172; In- 
dian census made, 190 ef seq.; 
Indian Council formed, 143; In- 
dian entertainment for, 193, 207; 
injury to shoulder, 248; insisted 
on using only English, 259; 
island, glacier and _ butterfly 
named for, 7, 198, 250; Juneau 
mission taken over, 258; Klondike 
lecture, 385; Klondike story, 330 
et seq.; last period at Fort Wran- 
gell, 302 et seq.; last years, 434 
et seq.; leaves for Klondike, 316; 
lecture tour in East, 406, 423; 
length of service, 309; library 
lost, 413; logging in Michigan, 
52; loss of daughter, 233, 307; 
love of literature, 50, 58; lumbago 


448 


attacks, 422, 428; marriage, 70, 
161 et seg.; marriage fees, 4II; 
marriage of daughter, 406, 408; 
maternal forebears, 26 et seq.; 
medical work, 105 ef seq.; me- 
morial fund planned, 439; mem- 
ories of Hyda Indians, 236 et 
seqg.; missionary ambitions, 62; 
missionary training, 54; mistakes 
and experiments, 309 et. seq.; 
Muir friendship, 173; New York 
work, 418 et seq., 427; Nome ex- 
pedition, 386 et seg., 400; ordina- 
tion, 67; outfit purchased, 319; 
paternal ancestry, 21 et seq.; 
period of service with Hydas, 
236; Pennsylvania Farm, 271, 
305; places named, 198; pleas for 
government aid, 253; poem on 
glaciers, 201; poor fund estab- 
lished, 264; preaching on the 
Yukon, 381; predestination doc- 
trine, 315; progress, 165; protec- 
tion against cold, 358 et seq.; 
radio and, 156; reasons for dis- 
satisfaction, 309 et seq.; recuper- 
ating in East, 402 et seq.; re- 
ligious training, 27, 40 et seq.; 
rescue by Muir, 177; route to 
Klondike, 319 et seq.; scepticism 
in youth, 50; second voyage with 
Muir, 249 et seqg.; secretary of 
territorial convention, 258; Sha- 
manism studied, 122; stock for 
Farm, 303; struggle with super- 
stition, 116; student preaching, 
60; teaching experience, 50 et 
seq., 56 et seq.; Teller mission, 


INDEX 


414; transcontinental tour for 
funds, 267 et seqg.; tribute to 
Tow-a-att, 185; trip east to plead 
for.government, 259, 270; trips to 
Alaska, 67 et seq., 404, 406 et seq., 
420 et seq.; trip with Muir, 175 
et seq.; trying predicament, 389; 
typhoid siege, 396 et seq.; college 
training, 57; unrest among In- 
dians, 220; varied activities at 
Nome, 393, 305 et seq.; various 
pastorates, 313; visits to Indians, 
182 et seq., 196 et seq., 205 et seq., 
230 ef seq., 242 et seq., 252, 300; 
visits to missions, 405, 406; visit 
to Angoon, 228; youth, TS youth- 
ful daring, 45 

Young, Mrs. S. Hall (see Fannie. 
Kelloge) 

Young, Henry, 21 

Young, James W., 38, 45, 49, 51, 
52, 55, 271, 310 

Young, Kirk, 37, 54 

Young, Loyal, 28 et seq., 36, 429 

Young, Lydia, 6 

Young, Margaret, 36, 68 

Young, Robert, 21 et seq., 49 

Young, Samuel, 34 

ee Sophronia Mehetabel, 25, 
I 

Young, Torrance, 49 

Young, Walter, 54 

Young, Watson, 49, 51 

Yukon River, 315; Dawson building 
program, 380; its dangers, 335 et 
seq.; missions established, 382; 
services On, 339; spring break-up, 
375; towns on the, 381 


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